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SEASON  OF  1921 


TOWARDS  THE  GREAT  PEACE 


TOWARDS    THE 
GREAT  PEACE 


LITT.D.,  LL.D. 


BOSTON 
MARSHALL  JONES  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT   •    IQ22   •   BY 
MARSHALL    JONES    COMPANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


HM 
161 


INTRODUCTION 

T7OR  the  course  of  lectures  I  am  privileged  to  de- 
•*-  liver  at  this  time,  I  desire  to  take,  in  some  sense 
as  a  text,  a  prayer  that  came  to  my  attention  at  the 
outset  of  my  preparatory  work.  It  is  adapted  from 
a  prayer  by  Bishop  Hacket  who  flourished  about 
the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  is  as 
follows  : 

Lord,  lift  us  out  of  Private-mindedness  and 
give  us  Public  souls  to  work  for  Thy  King- 
dom by  daily  creating  that  Atmosphere  of 
a  happy  temper  and  generous  heart  which 
alone  can  bring  the  Great  Peace. 

Each  thought  in  this  noble  aspiration  is  curiously 
applicable  to  each  one  of  us  in  the  times  in  which 
we  fall:  the  supersession  of  narrow  and  selfish  and 
egotistical  "private-mindedness"  by  a  vital  passion 
for  the  winning  of  a  Kingdom  of  righteousness 
consonant  with  the  revealed  will  of  God;  the  lift- 
ing of  souls  from  nervous  introspection  to  a  height 
where  they  become  indeed  "public  souls"  ;  the  accom- 
plishing of  the  Kingdom  not  by  great  engines  of 
mechanical  power  but  by  the  daily  offices  of  every 
individual;  the  substitution  in  place  of  current  ha- 
tred, fear  and  jealous  covetousness,  of  the  "happy 
temper  and  generous  heart"  which  are  the  only  fruit- 
ful agencies  of  accomplishment.  Finally,  the 


VI  INTRODUCTION 

"Great  Peace"  as  the  supreme  object  of  thought 
and  act  and  aspiration  for  us,  and  for  all  the  world, 
at  this  time  of  crisis  which  has  culminated  through 
the  antithesis  of  great  peace,  which  is  great  war. 

I  have  tried  to  keep  this  prayer  of  Bishop  Rack- 
et's before  me  during  the  preparation  of  these  lec- 
tures. I  cannot  claim  that  I  have  succeeded  in 
achieving  a  "happy  temper"  in  all  things,  but  I 
honestly  claim  that  I  have  striven  earnestly  for  the 
"generous  heart,"  even  when  forced,  by  what  seem 
to  me  the  necessities  of  the  case,  to  indulge  in  con- 
demnation or  to  bring  forward  subjects  which  can 
only  be  controversial.  If  the  "Great  War,"  and  the 
greater  war  which  preceded,  comprehended,  and  fol- 
lowed it,  were  the  result  of  many  and  varied  errors, 
it  matters  little  whether  these  were  the  result  of  per- 
versity, bad  judgment  or  the  most  generous  impulses. 
As  they  resulted  in  the  Great  War,  so  they  are  a 
detriment  to  the  Great  Peace  that  must  follow, 
and  therefore  they  must  be  cast  away.  Conscious- 
ness of  sin,  repentence,  and  a  will  to  do  better,  must 
precede  the  act  of  amendment,  and  we  must  see 
where  we  have  erred  if  we  are  to  forsake  our  ill 
ways  and  make  an  honest  effort  to  strive  for  some- 
thing better. 

For  every  failure  I  have  made  to  achieve  either  a 
happy  temper  or  a  generous  heart,  I  hereby  express 
my  regret,  and  tender  my  apologies  in  advance. 


CONTENTS 

LECTURE  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION v 

I.    A  WORLD  AT  THE  CROSSROADS      ...  I 

II.    A  WORKING    PHILOSOPHY      ....  30 

III.  THE  SOCIAL  ORGANISM 54 

IV.  THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM       ....  84 
V.    THE  POLITICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF  SOCIETY  122 

VI.    THE  FUNCTION  OF  EDUCATION  AND  ART    .  155 

VII.    THE  PROBLEM  OF  ORGANIC  RELIGION      .  189 

VIII.     PERSONAL    RESPONSIBILITY      ....  222 

APPENDIX    A 251 

APPENDIX    B                      e      .      .      a  264 


vu 


TOWARDS  THE  GREAT  PEACE 


TOWARDS  THE  GREAT 
PEACE 

i 

A  WORLD  AT  THE  CROSSROADS 

T7OR  two  thousand  years  Christianity  has  been  an 
A  operative  force  in  the  world;  for  more  than  a 
century  democracy  has  been  the  controlling  influence 
in  the  public  affairs  of  Europe  and  the  Americas; 
for  two  generations  education,  free,  general  and 
comprehensive,  has  been  the  rule  in  the  West. 
Wealth  incomparable,  scientific  achievements  unex- 
ampled in  their  number  and  magnitude,  facile  means 
of  swift  intercommunication  between  peoples,  have 
all  worked  together  towards  an  earthly  realization 
of  the  early  nineteenth-century  dream  of  proximate 
and  unescapable  millennium.  With  the  opening  of 
the  second  decade  of  the  twentieth  century  it  seemed 
that  the  stage  was  set  for  the  last  act  in  an  unques- 
tioned evolutionary  drama.  Man  was  master  of 
all  things,  and  the  failures  of  the  past  were  obliter- 
ated by  the  glory  of  the  imminent  event. 

The  Great  War  was  a  progressive  revelation  and 
disillusionment.  Therein  everything  so  carefully 
built  up  during  the  preceding  four  centuries  was 
tried  as  by  fire,  and  each  failed — save  the  indestruc- 
tible qualities  of  personal  honour,  courage  and  forti- 
tude. Nothing  corporate,  whether  secular  or  eccle- 


2         TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

siastical,  endured  the  test,  nothing  of  government 
or  administration,  of  science  or  industry,  of  phil- 
osophy or  religion.  The  victories  were  those  of 
individual  character,  the  things  that  stood  the  test 
were  not  things  but  men. 

The  "War  to  end  war,"  the  war  "to  make  the 
world  safe  for  democracy"  came  to  a  formal  ending, 
and  for  a  few  hours  the  world  gazed  spellbound  on 
golden  hopes.  Greater  than  the  disillusionment  of 
war  was  that  of  the  making  of  the  peace.  There 
had  never  been  a  war,  not  even  the  "Thirty  Years' 
War"  in  Germany,  the  "Hundred  Years'  War"  in 
France  or  the  wars  of  Napoleon,  that  was  fraught 
with  more  horror,  devastation  and  dishonour;  there 
had  never  been  a  Peace,  not  even  those  of  Berlin, 
Vienna  and  Westphalia,  more  cynical  or  more  deeply 
infected  with  the  poison  of  ultimate  disaster.  And 
here  it  was  not  things  that  failed,  but  men. 

What  of  the  world  since  the  Peace  of  Versailles? 
Hatred,  suspicion,  selfishness  are  the  dominant  notes. 
The  nations  of  Europe  are  bankrupt  financially,  and 
the  governments  of  the  world  are  bankrupt  politi- 
cally. Society  is  dissolving  into  classes  and  factions, 
either  at  open  war  or  manoeuvering  for  position, 
awaiting  the  favourable  moment.  Law  and  order 
are  mocked  at,  philosophy  and  religion  disregarded, 
and  of  all  the  varied  objects  of  human  veneration 
so  loudly  acclaimed  and  loftily  exalted  by  the  genera- 
tion that  preceded  the  war,  not  one  remains  to  com- 
mand a  wide  allegiance.  One  might  put  it  in  a 
sentence  and  say  that  everyone  is  dissatisfied  with 
everything,  and  is  showing  his  feelings  after  varied 


A   WORLD    AT    THE    CROSSROADS         3 

but  disquieting  fashion.  It  is  a  condition  of  unstable 
equilibrium  constantly  tending  by  its  very  nature 
to  a  point  where  dissolution  is  apparently  inevitable. 

It  is  no  part  of  my  task  to  elaborate  this  thesis, 
and  still  less  to  magnify  its  perils.  Enough  has  been 
said  and  written  on  this  subject  during  the  last  two 
years;  more  than  enough,  perhaps,  and  in  any  case  no 
thinking  person  is  unaware  of  the  conditions  that 
exist,  whatever  may  be  his  estimate  of  their  signi- 
ficance, his  interpenetration  of  their  tendency.  I 
have  set  myself  the  task  of  trying  to  suggest  some 
constructive  measures  that  we  may  employ  in  laying 
the  foundations  for  the  immediate  future ;  they  may 
be  wrong  in  whole  or  in  part,  but  at  least  my  object 
and  motive  are  not  recrimination  or  invective,  but 
regeneration.  Nevertheless,  as  a  foundation  the 
case  must  be  stated,  and  as  a  necessary  preparation 
to  any  work  that  looks  forward  we  must  have  at 
least  a  working  hypothesis  as  to  how  the  conditions 
that  need  redemption  were  brought  about.  I  state 
the  case  thus,  therefore :  That  human  society,  even 
humanity  itself,  is  now  in  a  state  of  flux  that  at  any 
moment  may  change  into  a  chaos  comparable  only 
with  that  which  came  with  the  fall  of  classical  civili- 
zation and  from  which  five  centuries  were  necessary 
for  the  process  of  recovery.  Christianity,  democ- 
racy, science,  education,  wealth,  and  the  cumulative 
inheritance  of  a  thousand  years,  have  not  preserved 
us  from  the  vain  repetition  of  history.  How  has 
this  been  possible,  what  has  been  the  sequence  of 
events  that  has  brought  us  to  this  pass? 

It  is  of  course  the  result  of  the  interaction  of 


4         TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

certain  physical,  material  facts  and  certain  spiritual 
forces.  Out  of  these  spiritual  energies  come  events, 
phenomena  that  manifest  themselves  in  political, 
social,  ecclesiastical  transactions  and  institutions;  in 
wars,  migrations  and  the  reshaping  of  states;  in 
codes  of  law,  the  organization  of  society,  the  devel- 
opment of  art,  literature  and  science.  In  their  turn 
all  these  concrete  products  work  on  the  minds  and 
souls  of  men,  modifying  old  spiritual  impulses  either 
by  exaltation  or  degradation,  bringing  new  ones 
into  play;  and  again  these  react  on  the  material 
fabric  of  human  life,  causing  new  combinations,  un- 
loosing new  forces,  that  in  their  turn  play  their  part 
in  the  eternal  process  of  building,  unbuilding  and 
rebuilding  our  unstable  and  fluctuant  world. 

Underlying  all  the  varied  material  forms  of  an- 
cient society,  as  this  developed  around  the  shores  of 
the  Mediterranean,  was  the  great  fact  of  slavery: 
Persia,  Assyria,  Babylonia,  Egypt,  Greece,  Rome, 
all  were  small,  sometimes  very  small,  minorities  of 
highly  developed,  highly  privileged  individuals  ex- 
isting on  a  great  sub-stratum  of  slaves.  All  the  vast 
contributions  of  antiquity  in  government  and  law,  in 
science,  letters,  art  and  philosophy,  all  the  building 
of  the  culture  and  civilization  that  still  remain  the 
foundation  stones  of  human  society,  was  the  work 
of  the  few  free  subsisting  on  the  many  un-free.  But 
freedom,  liberty,  is  an  attribute  of  the  soul  and  it 
may  exist  even  when  the  body  is  in  bondage.  The 
slaves  of  antiquity  were  free  neither  in  body  nor  in 
soul,  but  with  the  coming  of  Christianity  all  this 
was  changed,  for  it  is  one  of  the  great  glories  of  the 


A    WORLD    AT    THE    CROSSROADS         5 

Christian  religion  that  it  gave  freedom  to  the  soul 
even  before  the  Church  could  give  freedom  to  the 
body  of  the  slave.  After  the  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  with  the  infiltration  of  the  free  races  of 
the  North,  slavery  gradually  disappeared,  and  be- 
tween the  years  1000  and  1500  a  very  real  liberty 
existed  as  the  product  of  Christianity  and  under  its 
protection.  Society  was  hierarchical :  from  the  serf 
up  through  the  peasant,  the  guildsman,  the  burgher, 
the  knighthood,  the  nobles,  to  the  King,  and  so  to 
the  Emperor,  there  was  a  regular  succession  of  grad- 
uations, but  the  lines  of  demarcation  were  fluid  and 
easily  passed,  and  as  through  the  Church,  the  schools 
and  the  cloister  there  was  an  open  road  for  the  son 
of  a  peasant  to  achieve  the  Papacy,  so  through  the 
guilds,  chivalry,  war  and  the  court,  the  layman,  if 
he  possessed  ability,  might  from  an  humble  begin- 
ning travel  far.  An  epoch  of  real  liberty,  of  body, 
soul  and  mind,  and  the  more  real  in  that  limits, 
differences  and  degrees  were  recognized,  accepted 
and  enforced. 

This  condition  existed  roughly  for  five  centuries 
in  its  swift  rise,  its  long  dominion  and  its  slow  de- 
cline, that  is  to  say,  from  1000  A.D.  to  1500  A.D. 
There  was  still  the  traditional  aristocracy,  now 
feudal  rather  than  patriarchal  or  military;  there  was 
still  a  servile  class,  now  reduced  to  a  small  minority. 
In  between  was  the  great  body  of  men  of  a  degree 
of  character,  ability  and  intelligence,  and  with  a 
recognized  status,  the  like  of  which  had  never  been 
seen  before.  It  was  not  a  bourgeoisie,  for  it  was 
made  up  of  producers, — agricultural,  artisan,  craft, 


6         TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

art,  mechanic;  a  great  free  society,  the  proudest 
product  of  Christian  civilization. 

With  the  sixteenth  century  began  a  process  of 
change  that  was  to  overturn  all  this  and  bring  in 
something  radically  different.  The  Renaissance  and 
the  Reformation  worked  in  a  sense  together  to  build 
up  their  own  expressive  form  of  society,  and  when 
this  process  had  been  completed  we  find  still  an 
aristocracy,  though  rapidly  changing  in  the  quality 
of  its  personnel  and  in  the  sense  of  its  relationship 
to  the  rest  of  society;  a  servile  class,  the  proletariat, 
enormously  increased  in  proportion  to  the  other  so- 
cial components;  and  two  new  classes,  one  the  bour- 
geoisie, essentially  non-producers  and  subsisiting 
largely  either  on  trade,  usury  or  management,  and 
the  pauper,  a  phase  of  life  hitherto  little  known 
under  the  Christian  regime.  The  great  body  of  free 
citizens  that  had  made  up  the  majority  of  society 
during  the  preceding  epoch,  the  small  land-holders, 
citizens,  craftsmen  and  artists  of  fifty  different  sorts, 
has  begun  rapidly  to  dissolve,  has  almost  vanished 
by  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and  in 
another  hundred  years  has  practically  disappeared. 

What  had  become  of  them,  of  this  great  bulk  of 
the  population  of  western  Europe  that,  with  the 
feudal  aristocracy,  the  knighthood  and  the  monks 
had  made  Medievalism?  Some  had  degenerated 
into  bourgeois  traders,  managers  and  financeers,  but 
the  great  majority  had  been  crushed  down  and  down 
in  the  mass  of  submerged  proletariat,  losing  liberty, 
degenerating  in  character,  becoming  more  and  more 
servile  in  status  and  wretched  in  estate,  so  forming 


A    WORLD    AT    THE    CROSSROADS         7 

a  huge,  inarticulate,  dully  ebullient  mass,  cut  off 
from  society,  cut  off  almost  from  life  itself. 

I  must  insist  on  these  three  factors  in  the  devel- 
opment of  society  and  its  present  catastrophe :  the 
great,  predominant,  central  body  of  free  men  during 
the  Middle  Ages,  their  supersession  during  the  six- 
teenth, seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  by  a 
non-producing  bourgeoisie,  and  the  creation  during 
the  same  period  of  a  submerged  proletariat.  They 
are  factors  of  great  significance  and  potential  force. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
industrial-financial  revolution  began.  Within  the 
space  of  an  hundred  years  came  all  the  revelations  of 
the  potential  inherent  in  thermo-dynamics  and  elec- 
tricity, and  the  invention  of  the  machines  that  have 
changed  the  world.  During  the  Renaissance  and 
Reformation  the  old  social  and  economic  systems,  so 
laboriously  built  up  on  the  ruins  of  Rornan  tyranny, 
had  been  destroyed;  autocracy  had  abolished  liberty, 
licentiousness  had  wrecked  the  moral  stamina,  "free- 
dom of  conscience"  had  obliterated  the  guiding  and 
restraining  power  of  the  old  religion.  The  field  was 
clear  for  a  new  dispensation. 

What  happened  was  interesting  and  significant. 
Coal  and  iron,  and  their  derivatives — steam  and 
machinery — rapidly  revealed  their  possibilities.  To 
take  advantage  of  these,  it  was  necessary  that  labour 
should  be  available  in  large  quantities  and  freely 
subject  to  exploitation;  that  unlimited  capital  should 
be  forthcoming;  that  adequate  markets  should  be 
discovered  or  created  to  absorb  the  surplus  product, 
so  enormously  greater  than  the  normal  demand;  and 


8         TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

finally,  it  was  necessary  that  directors  and  organizers 
and  administrators  should  be  ready  at  the  call.  The 
conditions  of  the  time  made  all  these  possible.  The 
land-holding  peasantry  of  England — and  it  is  here 
that  the  revolution  was  accomplished — had  been 
largely  dispossessed  and  pauperized  under  Henry 
VIII,  Edward  VI  and  Elizabeth,  while  the  develop- 
ment of  the  wool-growing  industry  had  restricted 
the  arable  land  to  a  point  where  it  no  longer  gave 
employment  to  the  mass  of  field  labourers.  The  first 
blast  of  factory  production  threw  out  of  work  the 
whole  body  of  cottage  weavers,  smiths,  craftsmen; 
and  the  result  was  a  great  mass  of  men,  women,  and 
children  without  defense,  void  of  all  rights,  and 
given  the  alternative  of  submission  to  the  dominance 
of  the  exploiters,  or  starvation. 

Without  capital  the  new  industry  could  neither 
begin  nor  continue.  The  exploits  of  the  "joint-stock 
companies"  invented  and  perfected  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  showed  how  this  capital  could  easily  be 
obtained,  while  the  paralyzing  and  dismemberment 
of  the  Church  during  the  Reformation  had  resulted 
in  the  abrogation  of  the  old  ecclesiastical  inhibition 
against  usury.  The  necessary  capital  was  forth- 
coming, and  the  foundations  were  laid  for  the  great 
system  of  finance  which  was  one  of  the  triumphant 
achievements  of  the  last  century. 

The  question  of  markets  was  more  difficult.  It 
was  clear  that,  through  machinery,  the  exploitation 
of  labour,  and  the  manipulations  of  finance,  the  prod- 
uct would  be  enormously  greater  than  the  local  or 
national  demand.  Until  they  themselves  developed 


A    WORLD   AT    THE    CROSSROADS         9 

their  own  industrial  system,  the  other  nations  of 
Europe  were  available,  but  as  this  process  proceeded 
other  markets  had  to  be  found;  the  result  was 
achieved  through  advertising,  i.e.,  the  stimulating 
in  the  minds  of  the  general  public  of  a  covetousness 
for  something  they  had  not  known  of  and  did  not 
need,  and  the  exploiting  of  barbarous  or  undevel- 
oped races  in  Asia,  Africa,  Oceanica.  This  last  task 
was  easily  achieved  through  "peaceful  penetration" 
and  the  preempting  of  "spheres  of  influence."  In 
the  end  (i.e.,  A.D.  1914),  the  whole  world  had  so 
been  divided,  the  stimulated  markets  showed  signs 
of  repletion,  and  since  exaggerated  profits  meant 
increasing  capital  demanding  investment,  and  the 
improvement  in  "labour-saving"  devices  continued 
unchecked,  the  contest  for  others'  markets  became 
acute,  and  world-politic  was  concentrated  on  the 
vital  problem  of  markets,  lines  of  communication, 
and  tariffs. 

As  for  the  finding  or  development  of  competent 
organizers  and  directors,  the  history  of  the  world 
since  the  end  of  medievalism  had  curiously  pro- 
vided for  this  after  a  fashion  that  seemed  almost 
miraculous.  The  type  required  was  different  from 
anything  that  had  been  developed  before.  When- 
ever the  qualitative  standard  had  been  operative,  it 
was  necessary  that  the  leaders  in  any  form  of  crea- 
tive action  should  be  men  of  highly  developed  in- 
tellect, fine  sensibility,  wide  and  penetrating  vision, 
nobility  of  instinct,  passion  for  righteousness,  and  a 
consciousness  of  the  eternal  force  of  charity,  honour, 
and  service.  During  the  imperial  or  decadent 


10      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

stages,  courage,  dynamic  force,  the  passion  for  ad- 
venture, unscrupulousness  in  the  matter  of  method, 
took  the  place  of  the  qualities  that  marked  the  ear- 
lier periods.  In  the  first  instance  the  result  was  the 
great  law-givers,  philosophers,  prophets,  religious 
leaders,  and  artists  of  every  sort;  in  the  second,  the 
great  conquerors.  Something  quite  different  was 
now  demanded — men  who  possessed  some  of  the 
qualities  needed  for  the  development  of  imperialism, 
but  who  were  unhampered  by  the  restrictive  influ- 
ences of  those  who  had  sought  perfection.  To 
organize  and  administer  the  new  industrial-financial- 
commercial  regime,  the  leaders  must  be  shrewd,  in- 
genious, quick-witted,  thick-skinned,  unscrupulous, 
hard-headed,  and  avaricious;  yet  daring,  dominat- 
ing, and  gifted  with  keen  prevision  and  vivid  imagi- 
nation. These  qualities  had  not  been  bred  under 
any  of  the  Mediterranean  civilizations,  or  that  of 
Central  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages,  which  had  in- 
herited so  much  therefrom.  The  pursuit  of  per- 
fection always  implies  a  definite  aristocracy,  which 
is  as  much  a  goal  of  effort  as  a  noble  philosophy,  an 
august  civil  polity  or  a  great  art.  This  aristocracy 
was  an  accepted  and  indispensable  part  of  society, 
and  it  was  always  more  or  less  the  same  in  principle, 
and  always  the  centre  and  source  of  leadership,  with- 
out which  society  cannot  endure.  It  is  true  that  at 
the  hands  of  Christianity  it  acquired  a  new  quality, 
that  of  service  as  contingent  on  privilege — one  might 
almost  say  of  privilege  as  contingent  on  service — 
and  the  ideals  of  honour,  chivalry,  compassion  were 
established  as  its  object  and  method  of  operation 


A    WORLD    AT    THE    CROSSROADS       II 

even  though  these  were  not  always  achieved,  but  the 
result  was  not  a  new  creation;  it  was  an  institution 
as  old  as  society,  regenerated  and  transformed  and 
playing  a  greater  and  a  nobler  part  than  ever  before. 
Between  the  years  1455  and  1795  this  old  aris- 
tocracy was  largely  exterminated.  The  Wars  of 
the  Roses,  the  massacres  of  the  Reformation,  and 
the  Civil  Wars  in  England;  the  Thirty  Years'  War 
in  Germany;  the  Hundred  Years'  War,  the  Wars  of 
Religion,  and  the  Revolution  in  France  had  deci- 
mated the  families  old  in  honour,  preserving  the  tra- 
dition of  culture,  jealous  of  their  alliances  and  their 
breeding — the  natural  and  actual  leaders  in  thought 
and  action.  England  suffered  badly  enough  as  the 
result  of  war,  with  the  persecutions  of  Henry  VIII, 
Edward  VI  and  Elizabeth,  and  the  Black  Death,  in- 
cluded for  full  measure.  France  suffered  also,  but 
Germany  fared  worst  of  all.  By  the  end  of  the 
Thirty  Years'  War  the  older  feudal  nobility  had 
largely  disappeared,  while  the  class  of  "gentlemen" 
had  been  almost  exterminated.  In  France,  until  the 
fall  of  Napoleon  III,  and  in  Germany  and  Great 
Britain  up  to  the  present  moment,  the  recruiting  of 
the  formal  aristocracy  has  gone  on  steadily,  but  on 
a  different  basis  and  from  a  different  class  from 
anything  known  before.  Demonstrated  personal 
ability  to  gain  and  maintain  leadership;  distin- 
guished service  to  the  nation  in  war  or  statecraft; 
courage,  honour,  fealty — these,  in  general,  had  been 
the  ground  for  admission  to  the  ranks  of  the  aris- 
tocracy. In  general,  also,  advancement  to  the  ranks 
of  the  higher  nobility  was  from  the  class  of  "gentle- 


12      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

men,"  though  the  Church,  the  universities,  and  chiv- 
alry gave,  during  the  Middle  Ages,  wide  opportunity 
for  personal  merit  to  achieve  the  highest  honours. 

Through  the  wholesale  destruction  of  the  repre- 
sentatives of  a  class  that  from  the  beginning  of 
history  had  been  the  directing  and  creative  force  in 
civilization,  a  process  began  which  was  almost  me- 
chanical. As  the  upper  strata  of  society  were  planed 
off  by  war,  pestilence,  civil  slaughter,  and  assassina- 
tion, the  pressure  on  the  great  mass  of  men  (peas- 
ants, serfs,  unskilled  labourers,  the  so-called  "lower 
classes")  was  increasingly  relaxed,  and  very  soon 
the  thin  film  of  aristocracy,  further  weakened  by 
dilution,  broke,  and  through  the  crumbling  shell 
burst  to  the  surface  those  who  had  behind  them  no 
tradition  but  that  of  servility,  no  comprehension  of 
the  ideals  of  chivalry  and  honour  of  the  gentleman, 
no  stored-up  results  of  education  and  culture,  but 
only  an  age-long  rage  against  the  age-long  dominat- 
ing class,  together  with  the  instincts  of  craftiness, 
parsimony,  and  almost  savage  self-interest. 

As  a  class,  it  was  very  far  from  being  what  it  was 
under  the  Roman  Empire;  on  the  other  hand,  it  was 
equally  removed  from  what  it  was  during  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  in  England,  France  and  the  Rhineland. 
Under  medievalism  chattel  slavery  had  disap- 
peared, and  the  lot  of  the  peasant  was  a  happier 
one  than  he  had  known  before.  He  had  achieved 
definite  status,  and  the  line  that  separated  him  from 
the  gentry  was  very  thin  and  constantly  traversed, 
thanks  to  the  accepted  system  of  land  tenure,  the 
guilds,  chivalry,  the  schools  and  universities,  the 


A    WORLD   AT    THE    CROSSROADS       13 

priesthood  and  monasticism.  The  Renaissance  had 
rapidly  changed  all  this,  however;  absolutism  in 
government,  dispossession  of  land,  the  abolition  of 
the  guilds,  and  the  collapse  of  the  moral  order  and 
of  the  dominance  of  the  Church,  were  fast  pushing 
the  peasant  back  into  the  position  he  had  held  under 
the  Roman  Empire,  and  from  which  Christianity 
had  lifted  him.  By  1790  he  had  been  for  nearly 
three  centuries  under  a  progressive  oppression  that 
had  undone  nearly  all  the  beneficent  work  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages  and  made  the  peasant  class  practically  out- 
law, while  breaking  down  its  character,  degrading  its 
morals,  increasing  its  ignorance,  and  building  up  a 
sullen  rage  and  an  invincible  hatred  of  all  that  stood 
visible  as  law  and  order  in  the  persons  of  the  ruling 
class. 

Filtering  through  the  impoverished  and  diluted 
crust  of  a  dissolving  aristocracy,  came  this  irruption 
from  below.  In  their  own  persons  certain  of  these 
people  possessed  the  qualities  and  the  will  which 
were  imperative  for  the  organization  of  the  indus- 
try, the  trade,  and  the  finance  that  were  to  control 
the  world  for  four  generations,  and  produce  that 
industrial  civilization  which  is  the  basis  and  the 
energizing  force  of  modernism.  Immediately,  and 
with  conspicuous  ability,  they  took  hold  of  the  prob- 
lem, solved  its  difficulties,  developed  its  possibili- 
ties, and  by  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century  had 
made  it  master  of  the  world. 

Simultaneously  an  equal  revolution  and  reversal 
was  being  effected  in  government.  The  free  mon- 
archies of  the  Middle  Ages,  beneath  which  lay  the 


14      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

well  recognized  principle  that  no  authority,  human 
or  divine,  could  give  any  monarch  the  right  to  gov- 
ern wrong,  and  that  there  was  such  a  thing  (fre- 
quently exercised)  as  lawful  rebellion,  gave  place  to 
the  absolutism  and  autocracy  of  Renaissance  king- 
ship and  this,  which  was  fostered  both  by  Renais- 
sance and  Reformation,  became  at  once  the  ally  of 
the  new  forces  in  society  and  so  furthered  the  growth 
as  well  as  the  misery  and  the  degradation  of  the 
proletariat.  In  revolt  against  this  new  and  very 
evil  thing  came  the  republicanism  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  inspired  and  directed  in  large  measure  by 
members  of  the  fast  perishing  aristocracy  of  race, 
character  and  tradition.  It  was  a  splendid  uprising 
against  tyranny  and  oppression  and  is  best  expressed 
in  the  personalities  and  the  actions  of  the  Constitu- 
tional Convention  of  the  United  States  in  1787  and 
the  States  General  of  France  in  1789. 

The  movement  is  not  to  be  confounded  with  an- 
other that  synchronizes  with  it,  that  is  to  say,  dem- 
ocracy, for  the  two  things  are  radically  different  in 
their  antecedents,  their  protagonists,  their  modes 
of  operation  and  their  objects.  While  the  one  was 
the  aspiration  and  the  creation  of  the  more  enlight- 
ened and  cultured,  the  representatives  of  the  old 
aristocracy,  the  other  issued  out  of  the  same  milieu 
that  was  responsible  for  the  new  social  organism. 
That  is  to  say;  while  certain  of  the  more  shrewd 
and  ingenious  were  organizing  trade,  manufacture 
and  finance  and  developing  its  autocratic  and  im- 
perialistic possibilities  at  the  expense  of  the  great 
mass  of  their  blood-brothers,  others  of  the  same 


A   WORLD    AT    THE    CROSSROADS       15 

social  antecedents  were  devising  a  new  theory,  and 
experimenting  in  new  schemes,  of  government,  which 
would  take  all  power  away  from  the  class  that  had 
hitherto  exercised  it  and  fix  it  firmly  in  the  hands  of 
the  emancipated  proletariat.  This  new  model  was 
called  then,  and  is  called  now,  democracy.  Else- 
where I  have  tried  to  distinguish  between  democracy 
of  theory  and  democracy  of  method.  Perhaps  I 
should  have  used  a  more  lucid  nomenclature  if  I  had 
simply  distinguished  between  republicanism  and  de- 
mocracy, for  this  is  what  it  amounts  to.  The  former 
is  as  old  as  man,  and  is  part  of  the  "passion  for  per- 
fection" that  characterizes  all  crescent  society,  and 
is  indeed  the  chief  difference  between  brute  and 
human  nature;  it  means  the  guaranteeing  of  justice, 
and  may  be  described  as  consisting  of  abolition  of 
privilege,  equality  of  opportunity,  and  utilization  of 
ability.  Democracy  of  method  consists  in  a  variable 
and  uncertain  sequence  of  devices  which  are  sup- 
posed to  achieve  the  democracy  of  ideal,  but  as  a 
matter  of  fact  have  thus  far  usually  worked  in  the 
opposite  direction.  The  activity  of  this  movement 
synchronizes  with  the  pressing  upward  of  the  "the 
masses"  through  the  dissolving  crust  of  "the  classes," 
and  represents  their  contribution  to  the  science  of 
political  philosophy,  as  the  contribution  of  the  latter 
is  current  "political  economy." 

It  will  be  perceived  that  the  reaction  of  the  new 
social  force  in  the  case  of  industrial  organization  is 
fundamentally  opposed  to  that  which  occurred  in  the 
political  sphere.  The  one  is  working  steadily  to- 
wards an  autocratic  imperialism  and  the  "servile 


l6      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

state,"  the  other  towards  the  fluctuating,  incoherent 
control  of  the  making  and  administering  of  laws  by 
the  untrained,  the  uncultivated,  and  the  generally 
unfit,  the  issue  of  which  is  anarchy.  The  industrial- 
commercial-financial  oligarchy  that  dominated  soci- 
ety for  the  century  preceding  the  Great  War  is  the 
result  of  the  first;  Russia,  today,  is  an  exemplar  of 
the  second.  The  working  out  of  these  two  great 
devices  of  the  new  force  released  by  the  destructive 
processes  of  the  sixteenth,  sevententh,  and  eigh- 
teenth centuries,  simultaneously  though  in  apparent 
opposition,  explains  why,  when  the  war  broke  out, 
imperialism  and  democracy  synchronized  so  exactly : 
on  the  one  hand,  imperial  states,  industry,  com- 
merce, and  finance ;  on  the  other,  a  swiftly  accelerat- 
ing democratic  system  that  was  at  the  same  time 
the  effective  means  whereby  the  dominant  imperial- 
ism worked,  and  the  omnipresent  and  increasing 
threat  to  its  further  continuance. 

A  full  century  elapsed  before  victory  became 
secure,  or  even  proximate.  Republicanism  rapidly 
extended  itself  to  all  the  governments  of  western 
Europe,  but  it  could  not  maintain  itself  in  its  primal 
integrity.  Sooner  here,  later  there,  it  surrendered 
to  the  financial,  industrial,  commercial  forces  that 
were  taking  over  the  control  and  direction  of  society, 
becoming  partners  with  them  and  following  their 
aims,  conniving  at  their  schemes,  and  sharing  in 
their  ever-increasing  profits.  By  the  end  of  the  first 
decade  of  the  twentieth  century  these  supposedly 
"free"  governments  had  become  as  identified  with 
"special  privilege,"  and  as  widely  severed  from  the 


A   WORLD    AT    THE    CROSSROADS       17 

people  as  a  whole,  as  the  autocratic  governments  of 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  while  they 
failed  consistently  to  match  them  in  effectiveness, 
energy  and  efficiency  of  operation. 

For  this  latter  condition  democracy  was  measur- 
ably responsible.  For  fifty  years  it  had  been  slowly 
filtering  into  the  moribund  republican  system  until 
at  last,  during  the  same  first  decade  of  the  present 
century,  it  had  wholly  transformed  the  govern- 
mental system,  making  it,  whatever  its  outward 
form,  whether  constitutional  monarchy,  or  repub- 
lic, essentially  democratic.  So  government  became 
shifty,  opportunist,  incapable,  and  without  the  in- 
herent energy  to  resist,  beyond  a  certain  point,  the 
last  great  effort  of  the  emergent  proletariat  to  de- 
stroy, not  alone  the  industrial  civilization  it  justly 
detested,  but  the  very  government  it  had  acquired 
by  "peaceful  penetration"  and  organized  and  ad- 
ministered along  its  chosen  lines,  and  indeed  the  very 
fabric  of  society  itself. 

Now  these  two  remarkable  products  of  the  new 
mentality  of  a  social  force  were  facts,  but  they 
needed  an  intellectual  or  philosophical  justification 
just  as  a  low-born  profiteer,  when  he  has  acquired 
a  certain  amount  of  money,  needs  an  expensive  club 
or  a  coat  of  arms  to  regularize  his  status.  Protes- 
tantism and  materialistic  philosophy  were  joint 
nursing-mothers  to  modernism,  but  when,  by  the 
middle  of  the  last  century,  it  had  reached  man's 
estate,  they  proved  inadequate;  something  else  was 
necessary,  and  this  was  furnished  to  admiration  by 
evolutionism.  Through  its  doctrine  of  the  survival 


18       TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

of  the  fittest,  it  appeared  to  justify  in  the  fullest 
degree  the  gospel  of  force  as  the  final  test,  and 
"enlightened  self-interest"  as  the  new  moral  law; 
through  its  lucid  demonstration  of  the  strictly  phys- 
ical basis  of  life,  the  "descent  of  man"  from  pri- 
mordial slime  by  way  of  the  lemur  or  the  anthropoid 
ape,  and  the  non-existence  of  any  supernatural  power 
that  had  devised,  or  could  determine,  a  code  of 
morality  in  which  certain  things  were  eternal  by 
right,  and  other  than  the  variable  reactions  of  very 
highly  developed  animals  to  experience  and  environ- 
ment, it  had  given  weighty  support  to  the  increas- 
ingly popular  movement  towards  democracy  both  in 
theory  and  in  act. 

Its  greatest  contribution,  however,  was  its  argu- 
ment that,  since  the  invariable  law  of  life  was  one 
of  progressive  evolution,  therefore  the  acquired 
characteristics  which  formed  the  material  of  evo- 
lution, and  were  heritable,  could  be  mechanically 
increased  in  number  by  education;  hence  the  body 
of  inheritance  (which  unfortunately  varied  as  be- 
tween man  and  man  because  of  past  discrepancies  in 
environment,  opportunities,  and  education)  could  be 
equalized  by  a  system  of  teaching  that  aimed  to 
furnish  that  mental  and  physical  training  hitherto 
absent. 

Whether  the  case  was  ever  so  stated  in  set  terms 
does  not  matter;  very  shortly  this  became  the  firm 
conviction  of  the  great  mass  of  men,  and  the  modern 
democracy  of  method  is  based  on  the  belief  that  all 
men  are  equal  because  they  are  men,  and  that  free, 
compulsory,  secularized,  state-controlled  education 


A    WORLD    AT    THE    CROSSROADS       19 

can  and  does  remove  the  last  difference  that  made 
possible  any  discrimination  in  rights  and  privileges 
as  between  one  man  and  another. 

In  another  respect,  however,  the  superstition  of 
mechanical  evolution  played  an  important  part,  and 
with  serious  results.  Neither  the  prophets  nor  the 
camp-followers  seemed  to  realize  that  evolution, 
while  undoubtedly  a  law  of  life  within  certain  limits, 
was  inseparable  from  degradation  which  was  its 
concomitant,  that  is  to  say,  that  as  the  rocket  rises 
so  must  it  fall;  as  man  is  conceived,  born  and  ma- 
tures, even  so  must  he  die.  The  wave  rises,  but  falls 
again;  the  state  waxes  to  greatness,  wanes,  and  the 
map  knows  it  no  more ;  each  epoch  of  human  history 
arises  out  of  dim  beginnings,  magnifies  itself  in 
glory,  and  then  yields  to  internal  corruption,  dilu- 
tion and  adulteration  of  blood,  or  prodigal  dissipa- 
tion of  spiritual  force,  and  takes  its  place  in  the 
annals  of  ancient  history.  Without  recognition  of 
this  implacable,  unescapable  fact  of  degradation 
sequent  on  evolution,  the  later  becomes  a  delusion 
and  an  instrument  of  death,  for  the  eyes  of  man  are 
blind  to  incipient  or  crescent  dangers;  content,  self- 
secure,  lost  in  a  vain  dream  of  manifest  destiny  they 
are  deaf  to  warnings,  incapable  even  of  the  primary 
gestures  of  self-defense.  Such  was  one  of  the  re- 
sults of  nineteenth-century  evolutionism,  and  the 
generation  that  saw  the  last  years  of  the  nineteenth 
century  and  the  first  part  of  the  new,  basking  in  its 
day  dreams  of  self-complacency,  made  no  move  to 
avert  the  dangers  that  threatened  it  then  and  now 
menace  it  with  destruction. 


20      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

When,  therefore,  modernism  achieved  its  grand 
climacteric  in  July,  1914,  we  had  on  the  one  hand 
an  imperialism  of  force,  in  industry,  commerce,  and 
finance,  expressing  itself  through  highly  developed 
specialists,  and  dictating  the  policies  and  practices 
of  government,  society,  and  education;  on  the  other, 
a  democracy  of  form  which  denied,  combatted,  and 
destroyed  distinction  in  personality  and  authority  in 
thought,  and  discouraged  constructive  leadership  in 
the  intellectual,  spiritual,  and  artistic  spheres  of  ac- 
tivity. The  opposition  was  absolute,  the  results 
catastrophic.  The  lack  of  competent  leadership  in 
every  category  of  life  finds  a  sufficient  explanation 
in  the  two  opposed  forces,  in  their  origin  and  nature, 
and  in  the  fact  of  their  opposition. 

In  the  somewhat  garish  light  of  the  War  and  the 
Peace,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  feel  a  real  and  even 
poignant  sympathy  for  two  causes  that  were  promi- 
nent and  popular  in  the  first  fourteen  years  of  the 
present  century,  namely,  the  philosophy  that  based 
itself  on  a  mechanical  system  of  evolution  which 
predicted  unescapable,  irreversible  human  progress, 
and  that  religion  which  denied  the  reality  of  evil  in 
the  world.  The  plausibility  of  each  was  dissipated 
by  the  catastrophic  events  though  both  still  linger 
in  stubborn  unconsciousness  of  their  demise.  The 
impulse  towards  sympathy  is  mitigated  by  realiza- 
tion of  the  unfortunate  effect  they  exerted  on  his- 
tory. This  is  particularly  true  of  evolutionary  phi- 
losophy, which  was  held  as  an  article  of  faith,  either 
consciously  or  sub-consciously,  by  the  greater  part 
of  Western  society.  Not  only  did  it  deter  men  from 


A    WORLD    AT    THE    CROSSROADS      21 

realizing  the  ominous  tendency  of  events  but,  more 
unhappily,  it  minimized  their  power  to  discriminate 
between  what  was  good  and  bad  in  current  society, 
and  even  reversed  their  sense  of  comparative  values. 
If  man  was  indeed  progressing  steadily  from  bad 
to  good,  and  so  to  better  and  best,  then  the  vivid  and 
even  splendid  life  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  with  its  headlong  conquest  of  the 
powers  of  nature,  its  enormous  industrial  develop- 
ment, its  vast  and  ever-increasing  wealth  in  material 
things,  must  be  not  only  an  amazing  advance  beyond 
any  former  civilization  but  positively  good  in  itself, 
while  the  future  could  only  be  a  progressive  magni- 
fying of  what  then  was  going  on.  "Just  as"  to 
quote  Mr.  Chesterton's  admirable  Dr.  Pelkins, 
"just  as  when  we  see  a  pig  in  a  litter  larger  than  the 
other  pigs,  we  know  that  by  an  unalterable  law  of 
the  Inscrutable,  it  will  some  day  be  larger  than  an 
elephant  .  .  .  so  we  know  and  reverently  acknowl- 
edge that  when  any  power  in  human  politics  has 
shown  for  any  period  of  time  any  considerable  ac- 
tivity, it  will  go  on  until  it  reaches  the  sky." 

Nothing  but  a  grave  inability  to  estimate  values, 
based  on  a  psuedo-scientific  dogma,  can  explain  the 
lack  of  any  just  standard  of  comparative  values  that 
was  the  essential  quality  in  pre-war  society.  Ex- 
traordinary as  were  the  material  achievements  of 
the  time,  beneficent  in  certain  ways,  and  susceptible 
in  part  of  sometime  being  used  to  the  advantage  of 
humanity,  they  were  largely  negatived,  and  even  re- 
versed in  value,  just  because  the  sense  of  proportion 
had  been  lost.  The  image  which  might  have  stimu- 


22   TOWARDS   THE   GREAT   PEACE 

lated  reverence  had  become  a  fetish.  There  were 
voices  crying  in  the  wilderness  against  a  worship 
that  had  poisoned  into  idolatry,  but  they  were  un- 
heard. Progressively  the  real  things  of  life  were 
blurred  and  forgetten  and  the  things  that  were  so 
obviously  real  that  they  were  unreal  became  the 
object  and  the  measure  of  achievement. 

It  was  an  unhappy  and  almost  fatal  attitude  of 
mind,  and  it  was  engendered  not  so  much  by  the 
trend  of  civilization  since  the  Renaissance  and  Ref- 
ormation, nor  by  the  compulsion  and  cumulative 
influence  of  the  things  themselves,  as  by  the  natural 
temper  and  inclinations  and  the  native  standards 
of  this  emancipated  mass  of  humanity  that,  op- 
pressed, outraged  and  degraded  for  four  hundred 
years  had  at  last  burst  out  of  its  prison-house  and 
had  assumed  control  of  society  through  industrial- 
ism, politics  and  social  life.  The  saving  grace  of 
the  old  aristocracies  had  disappeared  with  the  insti- 
tution itself:  between  1875  and  1900  the  great 
single  leaders,  so  fine  in  character,  so  brilliant  in 
capacity,  so  surprising  in  their  numbers,  that  had 
given  a  deceptive  glory  to  the  so-called  Victorian 
Age,  had  almost  wholly  died  out,  and  the  new  condi- 
tions neither  fostered  the  development  of  adequate 
successors,  nor  gave  audience  to  the  few  that,  anom- 
alously, appeared.  It  is  not  surprising  therefore 
that  the  new  social  element  that  had  played  so  mas- 
terly a  part  in  bringing  to  its  perfection  the  indus- 
trial-financial-democratic scheme  of  life  should  have 
developed  an  apologetic  therefor,  and  imposed  it, 
with  all  its  materialism,  its  narrowness,  its  pragma- 


A    WORLD   AT    THE    CROSSROADS      23 

tism,  its,  at  times,  grossness  and  cynicism,  on  the 
mind  of  a  society  where  increasingly  their  own  fol- 
lowers were,  by  sheer  energy  and  efficiency,  acquiring 
a  predominant  position. 

I  am  not  unconscious  that  these  are  hard  sayings 
and  that  few  indeed  will  accept  them.  They  seem 
too  much  like  attempting  that  which  Burke  said  was 
impossible,  viz.,  to  bring  an  indictment  against  a 
people.  I  intend  nothing  of  the  sort.  Out  of  this 
same  body  of  humanity  which  as  a  whole  has  exerted 
this  very  unfavourable  influence  on  modern  society, 
have  come  and  will  come  personalities  of  sudden  and 
startling  nobility,  men  who  have  done  as  great  ser- 
vice as  any  of  their  contemporaries  whatever  their 
class  or  status.  Out  of  the  depths  have  come  those 
who  have  ascended  to  the  supreme  heights,  for  since 
Christianity  came  into  the  world  to  free  the  souls 
of  men,  this  new  liberty  has  worked  without  limita- 
tions of  caste  or  race.  Indeed,  the  very  creations 
of  the  emergent  force,  industrialism  and  democracy, 
while  they  were  the  betrayal  of  the  many  were  the 
opportunity  of  the  few,  taking  the  place,  as  they 
did,  of  the  older  creeds  of  specifically  Christian 
society,  and  inviting  those  who  would  to  work  their 
full  emancipation  and  so  become  the  servants  of 
God  and  mankind.  By  the  very  bitterness  of  their 
antecedents,  the  cruelty  of  their  inheritance,  they 
gained  a  deeper  sense  of  the  reality  of  life,  a  more 
just  sense  of  right  and  wrong,  a  clearer  vision  of 
things  as  they  were,  than  happened  in  the  case  of 
those  who  had  no  such  experience  of  the  deep  bru- 
tality of  the  regime  of  post-Renaissance  society. 


24      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

True  as  this  is,  it  is  also  true  that  for  one  who 
won  through  there  were  many  who  gained  nothing, 
and  it  was,  and  is,  the  sheer  weight  of  numbers  of 
those  who  failed  of  this  that  has  made  their  influ- 
ence on  the  modern  life  as  pervasive  and  controlling 
as  it  is. 

What  has  happened  is  a  certain  degradation  of 
character,  a  weakening  of  the  moral  stamina  of 
men,  and  against  this  no  mechanical  device  in  gov- 
ernment, no  philosophical  or  social  theory,  can  stand 
a  chance  of  successful  resistance,  while  material 
progress  in  wealth  and  trade  and  scientific  achieve- 
ment becomes  simply  a  contributary  force  in  the 
process  of  degeneration.  For  this  degradation  of 
character  we  are  bound  to  hold  this  new  social  force 
in  a  measure  responsible,  even  though  it  has  so 
operated  because  of  its  inherent  qualities  and  in  no 
material  respect  through  conscious  cynicism  or  vi- 
ciousness;  indeed  it  is  safe  to  say  that  in  so  far  as  it 
was  acting  consciously  it  was  with  good  motives, 
which  adds  an  element  of  even  greater  tragedy  to  a 
situation  already  sufficiently  depressing. 

If  I  am  right  in  holding  this  to  be  the  effective 
cause  of  the  situation  we  have  now  to  meet,  it  is 
true  that  it  is  by  no  means  the  only  one.  The 
emancipation  and  deliverance  of  the  downtrodden 
masses  of  men  who  owed  their  evil  estate  to  the 
destruction  of  the  Christian  society  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  was  a  clamourous  necessity;  it  was  a  slavery 
as  bad  in  some  ways  as  any  that  had  existed  in 
antiquity,  and  the  number  of  its  victims  was  greater. 
The  ill  results  of  the  accomplished  fact  was  largely 


A   WORLD   AT    THE    CROSSROADS       25 

due  to  the  condition  of  religion  which  existed  during 
the  period  of  emancipation.  No  society  can  endure 
without  vital  religion,  and  any  revolution  effected 
at  a  time  when  religion  is  moribund  or  dissipated  in 
contentious  fragments,  is  destined  to  be  evacuated 
of  its  ideals  and  its  potential,  and  to  end  in  disaster. 
Now  the  freeing  of  the  slaves  of  the  Renaissance 
and  the  post-Reformation,  and  their  absorption  in 
the  body  politic,  was  one  of  the  greatest  revolutions 
in  history,  and  it  came  at  a  time  when  religion,  which 
had  been  one  and  vital  throughout  Western  Europe 
for  six  centuries,  had  been  shattered  and  nullified, 
and  its  place  taken,  in  the  lands  that  saw  the  great 
liberation,  by  Calvinism,  Lutheranism,  Puritanism 
and  atheism,  none  of  which  could  exert  a  guiding  and 
redemptive  influence  on  the  dazed  hordes  that  had 
at  last  come  up  into  the  light  of  day. 

In  point  of  fact,  therefore,  we  are  bound  to  trace 
back  the  responsibility  for  the  present  crisis  even  to 
the  Reformation  itself,  as  well  as  to  the  tyranny 
and  absolutism  of  government,  and  the  sordid  and 
profligate  ordering  of  society,  which  followed  on 
the  end  of  Mediaevalism. 

So  then  we  stand  today  confronting  a  situation 
that  is  ominous  and  obscure,  since  the  very  ideals 
and  devices  which  we  had  held  were  the  last  word 
in  progressive  evolution  have  failed  at  the  crisis, 
and  because  we  who  created  them  and  have  worked 
through  them,  have  failed  in  character,  and  chiefly 
because  we  have  accepted  low  ideals  and  inferior 
standards  imposed  upon  us  by  social  elements  be- 
trayed and  abandoned  by  a  world  that  could  not 


26      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

aid  them  or  assimilate  them  since  itself  had  be- 
trayed the  only  thing  that  could  give  them  force, 
unity  and  coherency,  that  is,  a  vital  and  pervasive 
religious  faith. 

There  are  those  who  hold  our  case  to  be  desper- 
ate, to  whom  the  disillusionment  of  peace,  after  the 
high  optimism  engendered  by  the  vast  heroism  and 
the  exalted  ideals  instigated  by  the  war,  has  brought 
nothing  but  a  mood  of  deep  pessimism.  The  senti- 
ment is  perhaps  natural,  but  it  is  none  the  less  both 
irrational  and  wicked.  If  it  is  persisted  in,  if  it 
becomes  widespread,  it  may  perfectly  well  justify 
itself,  but  only  so.  We  no  longer  accept  the  Calvin- 
istic  doctrine  of  predestination,  we  believe,  and  must 
highly  believe,  that  our  fate  is  of  our  own  making, 
for  Christianity  has  made  us  the  heirs  of  free-will. 
What  we  will  that  shall  we  be,  or  rather,  what  we 
are  that  shall  we  will,  and  if  we  make  of  ourselves 
what,  by  the  grace  of  God,  we  may,  then  the  victory 
rests  with  us.  It  is  true  that  we  are  in  the  last 
years  of  a  definite  period,  on  that  decline  that  pre- 
cedes the  opening  of  a  new  epoch.  Never  in  history 
has  any  such  period  overpassed  its  limit  of  five  hun- 
dred years,  and  ours,  which  came  to  birth  in  the 
last  half  of  the  fifteenth  century,  cannot  outlast  the 
present.  But  these  declining  years  are  preceding 
those  wherein  all  things  are  made  new,  and  the  next 
two  generations  will  see,  not  alone  the  passing  of 
what  we  may  call  modernism,  since  it  is  our  own  age, 
but  the  prologue  of  the  epoch  that  is  to  come.  It  is 
for  us  to  say  what  this  shall  be.  It  is  not  foreor- 
dained; true,  if  we  will  it,  it  may  be  a  reign  of  dis- 


A   WORLD    AT    THE    CROSSROADS      27 

aster,  a  parallel  to  the  well-recognized  "Dark  Ages" 
of  history,  but  also,  if  we  will,  it  may  be  a  new  and  a 
true  "renaissance,"  a  rebirth  of  old  ideals,  of  old 
honour,  of  old  faith,  only  incarnate  in  new  and  noble 
forms. 

The  vision  of  an  old  heaven  and  a  new  earth  was 
vouchsafed  us  during  the  war,  when  horror  and 
dishonour  and  degradation  were  shot  through  and 
through  with  an  epic  heroism  and  chivalry  and  self- 
sacrifice.  What  if  this  all  did  fade  in  the  miasma 
of  Versailles  and  the  cynicism  of  trade  fighting  to 
get  back  to  "normalcy,"  and  the  red  anarchy  out 
of  the  East?  There  is  no  fiat  of  God  that  fixes 
these  things  as  eternal.  Even  they  also  may  be 
made  the  instruments  of  revelation  and  re-creation. 
Paris  and  London,  Rome,  Berlin  and  Washington 
are  meshed  in  the  tangled  web  of  the  superannuated 
who  cannot  escape  the  incubus  of  the  old  ways  and 
the  old  theories  that  were  themselves  the  cause  of 
the  war  and  of  the  failure  of  "modern  civilization," 
but  another  generation  is  taking  the  field  and  we 
must  believe  that  this  has  been  burned  out  of  them. 
They  may  have  achieved  this  great  perfection  in  the 
field,  they  may  have  experienced  it  through  those 
susceptible  years  of  life  just  preceding  military  age. 
It  does  not  matter.  Somehow  they  have  it,  and 
those  who  come  much  in  contact  in  school  or  college 
with  boys  and  men  between  the  ages  of  seventeen 
and  twenty-five,  know,  and  thankfully  confess,  that 
if  they  can  control  the  event  the  future  is  secure. 

In  the  harlequinade  of  fabulous  material  success 
the  nations  of  "modern  civilization"  suffered  a 


28      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

moral  deterioration,  in  themselves  and  in  their  indi- 
vidual members;  by  a  moral  regeneration  they  may 
be  saved.  How  is  this  to  be  accomplished?  How, 
humanly  speaking,  is  the  redemption  of  society  to 
be  achieved?  Not  alone  by  change  of  heart  in  each 
individual,  though  if  this  could  be  it  would  be 
enough.  Humanly  speaking  there  is  not  time  and 
we  dare  not  hope  for  the  divine  miracle  whereby 
"in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  we  shall  all  be  changed." 
Still  less  by  sole  reliance  on  some  series  of  new 
political,  social,  economic  and  educational  devices; 
there  is  no  plan,  however  wise  and  profound,  that 
can  work  effectively  under  the  dead  weight  of  a 
society  that  is  made  up  of  individuals  whose  moral 
sense  is  defective.  Either  of  these  two  methods, 
put  into  operation  by  itself,  will  fail.  Acting  to- 
gether they  may  succeed. 

I  repeat  what  I  have  said  before.  The  material 
thing  and  the  spiritual  force  work  by  inter-action  and 
coordinately.  The  abandonment  or  reform  of  some 
device  that  has  proved  evil  or  inadequate,  and  the 
substitution  of  something  better,  changes  to  that 
extent  the  environment  of  the  individual  and  so 
enables  him  more  perfectly  to  develop  his  inherent 
possibilities  in  character  and  capacity,  while  every 
advance  in  this  direction  reacts  on  the  machinery  of 
life  and  makes  its  improvement  more  possible.  With 
a  real  sense  of  my  own  personal  presumption,  but 
with  an  equally  real  sense  of  the  responsibility  that 
rests  on  every  man  at  the  present  crisis,  I  shall  ven- 
ture certain  suggestions  as  to  possible  changes  that 
may  well  be  effected  in  the  material  forms  of  con- 


A    WORLD    AT    THE    CROSSROADS      29 

temporary  society  as  well  as  in  its  methods  of 
thought,  in  order  that  the  spiritual  energies  of  the 
individual  may  be  raised  to  a  higher  level  through 
the  amelioration  of  a  hampering  environment,  and, 
with  even  greater  diffidence,  others  that  may  bear 
more  directly  on  the  character-development  of  the 
individual.  In  following  out  this  line  of  thought  I 
shall,  in  the  remaining  seven  lectures,  speak  suc- 
cessively on:  A  Working  Philosophy;  The  Social 
Organism;  The  Industrial  and  Economic  Problem; 
The  Political  Organization  of  Society;  The  Function 
of  Education  and  Art;  The  Problem  of  Organic  Re- 
ligion; and  Personal  Responsibility. 

I  am  only  too  conscious  of  the  fact  that  the  divi- 
sion of  my  subject  under  these  categorical  heads, 
and  the  necessities  of  special  argument,  if  not  indeed 
of  special  pleading,  have  forced  me  to  such  particu- 
lar stress  on  each  subject  as  may  very  likely  give  an 
impression  of  undue  emphasis.  If  each  lecture  were 
to  be  taken  by  itself,  such  an  impression  would,  I 
fear,  be  unescapable;  I  ask  therefore  for  the  cour- 
tesy of  a  suspension  of  judgment  until  the  series  is 
completed,  for  it  is  only  when  taken  as  a  whole,  one 
paper  reacting  upon  and  modifying  another,  that 
whatever  merit  the  course  possesses  can  be  made 
apparent. 


II 

A  WORKING  PHILOSOPHY1 

*  I AHE  first  reaction  of  the  World  War  was  a 
*~  great  interrogation,  and  the  technical  "Peace" 
that  has  followed  brings  only  reiteration.  Why 
did  these  things  come,  and  how?  The  answers  are 
as  manifold  as  the  clamourous  tongues  that  ask,  but 
none  carries  conviction  and  the  problem  is  still  un- 
solved. According  to  all  rational  probabilities  we 
had  no  right  to  expect  the  war  that  befell;  accord- 
ing to  all  tne  human  indications  as  we  saw  them  re- 
vealed amongst  the  Allies  we  had  a  right  to  expect  a 
better  peace;  according  to  our  abiding  and  abound- 
ing faith  we  had  a  right  to  expect  a  great  bettering 
of  life  after  the  war,  and  even  in  spite  of  the  peace. 
It  is  all  a  non  sequitur,  and  still  we  ask  the  reason 
and  the  meaning  of  it  all. 

It  may  be  very  long  before  the  full  answer  is 
given,  yet  if  we  are  searching  the  way  towards  "The 
Great  Peace"  we  must  establish  some  working 
theory,  if  only  that  we  may  redeem  our  grave  errors 
and  avoid  like  perils  in  the  future.  The  explanation 

1This  lecture  has  been  very  considerably  re-written  since  it  was 
delivered,  and  much  of  the  matter  it  then  contained  has  been 
cut  out.  and  is  now  printed  in  the  Appendix.  These  excisions 
were  purely  speculative,  and  while  they  have  a  certain  bearing  on 
the  arguments  and  conclusions  in  the  other  lectures,  might  very 
well  be  prejudicial  to  them,  and  for  this  reason  it  has  seemed 
better  to  remove  them  from  the  general  sequence  and  give  them 
a  supplementary  place  by  themselves. 

30 


A     WORKING     PHILOSOPHY  31 

I  assume  for  myself,  and  on  which  I  must  work,  is 
that,  in  spite  of  our  intentions  (which  were  of  the 
best)  we  were  led  into  the  development,  acceptance 
and  application  of  a  false  philosophy  of  life  which 
was  not  only  untenable  in  itself  but  was  vitiated  and 
made  noxious  through  its  severance  from  vital  re- 
ligion. In  close  alliance  with  this  declension  of 
philosophy  upon  a  basis  that  had  been  abandoned 
by  the  Christian  world  for  a  thousand  years,  per- 
haps as  the  ultimate  reason  for  its  occurrence,  was 
the  tendency  to  void  religion  of  its  vital  power,  to 
cut  it  out  of  intimate  contact  with  life,  and,  in  the 
end,  to  abandon  it  altogether  as  an  energizing  force 
interpenetrating  all  existence  and  controlling  it  in 
certain  definite  directions  and  after  certain  definite 
methods. 

The  rather  complete  failure  of  our  many  modern 
and  ingenious  institutions,  the  failure  of  institu- 
tionalism  altogether,  is  due  far  less  to  wrong  theo- 
ries underlying  them,  or  to  radical  defects  in  their 
technique,  than  it  is  to  this  false  philosophy  and 
this  progressive  abandonment  of  religion.  The 
wrong  theories  were  there,  and  the  mechanical  de- 
fects, for  the  machines  were  conditioned  by  the 
principle  that  lay  behind  them,  but  effort  at  correc- 
tion and  betterment  will  make  small  progress  unless 
we  first  regain  the  right  religion  and  a  right  philos- 
ophy. I  said  this  to  Henri  Bergson  last  year  in 
Paris  and  his  reply  was  significant  as  coming  from 
a  philosopher.  "Yes,"  he  said,  "you  are  right;  and 
of  the  two,  the  religion  is  the  more  important." 

If  we  had  this  back,  and  in  full  measure;  if  society 


32       TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

were  infused  by  it,  through  and  through,  and  men 
lived  its  life,  and  in  its  life,  philosophy  would  take 
care  of  itself  and  the  nature  of  our  institutions  would 
not  matter.  On  the  other  hand,  without  it,  no 
institution  can  be  counted  safe,  or  will  prove  effica- 
cious, while  no  philosophy,  however  lofty  and  mag- 
isterial, can  take  its  place,  or  even  play  its  own 
part  in  the  life  of  man  or  society.  I  must  in  these 
lectures  say  much  about  institutions  themselves,  but 
first  I  shall  try  to  indicate  what  seem  to  me  the 
more  serious  errors  in  current  philosophy,  leaving 
until  after  a  study  of  the  material  forms  which  are 
so  largely  conditioned  by  the  philosophical  attitude, 
the  consideration  of  that  religion,  both  organic  and 
personal,  which  I  believe  can  alone  verify  the  phi- 
losophy, give  the  institutions  life  and  render  them 
reliable  agencies  for  good. 

For  a  working  definition  of  philosophy,  in  the 
sense  in  which  I  use  it  here,  I  will  take  two  sayings, 
one  out  of  the  thirteenth  century,  one  from  the 
twentieth.  "They  are  called  wise  who  put  things 
in  their  right  order  and  control  them  well,"  says  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas.  "Philosophy  is  the  science  of  the 
totality  of  things,"  says  Cardinal  Mercier,  his  great- 
est contemporary  commentator,  and  he  continues, 
"Philosophy  is  the  sum-total  of  reality."  Philoso- 
phy is  the  body  of  human  wisdom,  verified  and  ir- 
radiated by  divine  wisdom.  "The  science  of  the 
totality  of  things" :  not  the  isolation  of  individual 
phenomena,  or  even  of  groups  of  phenomena,  as  is 
the  method  of  the  natural  sciences,  but  the  setting 
of  all  in  their  varied  relationships  and  values,  the 


A      WORKING     PHILOSOPHY  33 

antithesis  of  that  narrowness  and  concentration  of 
vision  that  follow  intensive  specialization  and  have 
issue  in  infinite  delusions  and  unrealities,  "Philosophy 
regards  the  sum-total  of  reality"  and  it  achieves  this 
consciousness  of  reality,  first  by  establishing  right 
relations  between  phenomena,  and  then,  abandoning 
the  explicit  intellectual  process,  by  falling  back  on 
divine  illumination  which  enables  it  to  see  through 
those  well-ordered  phenomena  the  Divine  Actuality 
that  lies  behind,  informing  them  with  its  own  finality 
and  using  them  both  as  types  and  as  media  of  trans- 
mission and  communication.  So  men  are  enabled 
by  philosophy  "to  put  things  in  their  right  order" 
and  by  religion  "to  control  them  well,"  thus  becom- 
ing indeed  worthy  to  be  "called  wise." 

Now,  from  the  beginnings  of  conscious  life,  man 
has  found  himself  surrounded  and  besieged  by  un- 
calculable  phenomena.  Beaten  upon  by  forces  he 
could  not  estimate  or  predict  or  control,  he  has 
sought  to  solve  their  sphynx-like  riddle,  to  establish 
some  plausible  relation  between  them,  to  erect  a 
logical  scheme  of  things.  Primitive  man,  as  Wor- 
ringer  demonstrates  in  his  "Form  Problems  of  the 
Gothic,"  strove  to  achieve  something  of  certitude 
and  fixity  through  the  crude  but  definite  lines  and 
forms  of  neolithic  art.  Classical  man  brought  into 
play  the  vigour  and  subtlety  and  ingenuity  of  intellect 
in  its  primal  and  most  dynamic  form,  expressed 
through  static  propositions  of  almost  mathematical 
exactness.  The  peoples  of  the  East  rejected  the 
intellectual-mathematical  method  and  solution  and 
sought  a  way  out  through  the  mysterious  operation 


34      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

of  the  inner  sense  that  manifests  itself  in  the  form 
of  emotion.  With  the  revelation  of  Christianity 
came  also,  and  of  course,  enlightenment,  which  was 
not  definite  and  closed  at  some  given  moment,  but 
progressive  and  cumulative.  At  once,  speaking 
philosophically,  the  intellectual  method  of  the  West 
and  the  intuitive  method  of  the  East  came  together 
and  fused  in  a  new  thing,  each  element  limiting, 
and  at  the  same  time  fortifying  the  other,  while  the 
opposed  obscurities  of  the  past  were  irradiated  by 
the  revealing  and  creative  spirit  of  Christ.  So  came 
the  beginnings  of  that  definitive  Christian  philos- 
ophy which  was  to  proceed  from  Syria,  Anatolia  and 
Constantinople,  through  Alexandria  to  St.  Augus- 
tine, and  was  to  find  its  fullest  expression  during  the 
Middle  Ages  and  by  means  of  Duns  Scotus,  Albertus 
Magnus,  Hugh  of  St.  Victor  and  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas. 

It  is  an  interesting  fact,  though  apart  from  my 
present  consideration,  that  this  philosophical  fusion 
was  paralleled  in  the  same  places  and  at  the  same 
time,  by  an  aesthetic  fusion  that  brought  into  ex- 
istence the  first  great  and  consistent  art  of  Chris- 
tianity. This  question  is  admirably  dealt  with  in 
Lisle  March  Phillipps'  "Form  and  Colour." 

This  great  Christian  philosophy  which  lay  behind 
all  the  civilization  of  the  Middle  Ages,  was  posi- 
tive, comprehensive  and  new.  It  demonstrated 
divine  purpose  working  consciously  through  all 
things  with  a  result  in  perfect  coherency;  it  gave 
history  a  new  meaning  as  revealing  reality  and  as  a 
thing  forever  present  and  never  past,  and  above  all 


A     WORKING     PHILOSOPHY  35 

it  elucidated  the  nature  of  both  matter  and  spirit 
and  made  clear  their  operation  through  the  doc- 
trine of  sacramentalism. 

In  the  century  that  saw  the  consummation  of  this 
great  philosophical  system — as  well  as  that  of  the 
civilization  which  was  its  expositor  in  material 
form — there  came  a  separation  and  a  divergence. 
The  balanced  unity  was  broken,  and  on  the  one 
hand  the  tendency  was  increasingly  towards  the  ex- 
aggerated mysticism  that  had  characterized  the 
Eastern  moiety  of  the  synthesis,  on  the  other  to- 
wards an  exaggerated  intellectualism  the  seeds  of 
which  are  inherent  even  in  St.  Thomas  himself.  The 
new  mysticism  withdrew  further  and  further  from 
the  common  life,  finding  refuge  in  hidden  sanctu- 
aries in  Spain,  Italy,  the  Rhineland;  the  old  intel- 
lectualism became  more  and  more  dominant  in  the 
minds  of  man  and  the  affairs  of  the  world,  and  with 
the  Renaissance  it  became  supreme,  as  did  the  other 
qualities  of  paganism  in  art  as  well  as  in  every  other 
field  of  human  activity. 

The  first  fruit  of  the  new  intellectualism  was  the 
philosophy  of  Dr.  John  Calvin — if  we  can  call  it 
such, — Augustinian  philosophy,  misread,  distorted 
and  made  noxious  by  its  reliance  on  the  intellectual 
process  cut  off  from  spiritual  energy  as  the  sufficient 
corrective  of  philosophical  thought.  It  is  this  false 
philosophy,  allied  with  an  equally  false  theology, 
that  misled  for  so  many  centuries  those  who  ac- 
cepted the  new  versions  of  Christianity  that  issued 
out  of  the  Reformation.  The  second  was  the  mech- 
anistic system,  or  systems,  the  protagonist  of  which 


36       TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

was  Descartes.  If,  as  I  believe,  Calvinism  was  un- 
Christian,  the  materialistic  philosophies  that  have 
gone  on  from  the  year  1637,  were  anti-Christian. 
As  the  power  of  Christianity  declined  through  the 
centuries  that  have  followed  the  Reformation,  Cal- 
vinism played  a  less  and  less  important  part,  while 
the  new  philosophies  of  mechanism  and  rationalism 
correspondingly  increased.  During  the  nineteenth 
century  their  control  was  absolute,  and  what  we  are 
today  we  have  become  through  this  dominance, 
coupled  with  the  general  devitalizing  or  abandon- 
ment of  religion. 

And  yet  are  we  not  left  comfortless.  Even  in 
the  evolutionary  philosophy  engendered  by  Darwin 
and  formulated  by  Herbert  Spencer  and  the  Ger- 
mans, with  all  its  mistaken  assumptions  and  dubious 
methods,  already  there  is  visible  a  tendency  to  get 
away  from  the  old  Pagan  static  system  reborn  with 
the  Renaissance.  We  can  never  forget  that  Bergson 
has  avowed  that  "the  mind  of  man,  by  its  very 
nature,  is  incapable  of  apprehending  reality."  After 
this  the  return  towards  the  scholastic  philosophy  of 
the  Middle  Ages  is  not  so  difficult,  nor  even  its 
recovery.  If  we  associate  with  this  process  on  the 
part  of  formal  philosophy  the  very  evident,  if  some- 
times abnormal  and  exaggerated,  progress  towards 
a  new  mysticism,  we  are  far  from  finding  ourselves 
abandoned  to  despair  as  to  the  whole  future  of 
philosophy. 

Now  this  return  and  this  recovery  are,  I  believe, 
necessary  as  one  of  the  first  steps  towards  estab- 
lishing a  sound  basis  for  the  building  up  of  a  new 


A     WORKING     PHILOSOPHY  37 

and  a  better  civilization,  and  one  that  is  in  fact  as 
well  as  in  name  a  Christian  civilization.  I  do  not 
mean  that,  with  this  restoration  of  Christian  philos- 
ophy, there  we  should  rest.  Both  revelation  and 
enlightenment  are  progressive,  and  once  the  nexus 
of  our  broken  life  were  restored,  philosophical  de- 
velopment would  be  continuous,  and  we  should  go 
on  beyond  the  scholastics  even  as  they  proceeded 
beyond  Patristic  theology  and  philosophy.  I  think 
a  break  of  continuity  was  effected  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  with  disastrous  effects,  and  until  this  break 
is  healed  we  are  cut  off  from  what  is  in  a  sense  the 
Apostolical  succession  of  philosophical  verity. 

Before  going  further  I  would  guard  against  two 
possible  misconceptions;  of  one  of  them  I  have 
already  spoken,  that  is,  the  error  so  frequent  in  the 
past  as  well  as  today,  that  would  make  of  philos- 
ophy, however  sound,  however  consonant  with  the 
finalities  of  revealed  religion,  a  substitute  in  any 
degree  for  religion  itself.  Philosophy  is  the  reaction 
of  the  intellect,  of  man  to  the  stimuli  of  life,  but 
religion  is  life  and  is  therefore  in  many  ways  a  flat 
contradiction  of  the  concepts  of  the  intellect,  which 
is  only  a  small  portion  of  life,  therefore  limited, 
partial,  and  (because  of  this)  sometimes  entirely 
wrong  in  its  conclusions  independently  arrived  at 
along  these  necessarily  circumscribed  lines. 

The  second  possible  error  is  that  philosophy  is 
the  affair  of  a  small  group  of  students  and  special- 
ists, quite  outside  the  purview  of  the  great  mass  of 
men,  and  that  it  owes  its  existence  to  this  same  class 
of  delving  scholars,  few  in  number,  impractical  in 


38      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

their  aims,  and  sharply  differentiated  from  their  fel- 
lows. On  the  contrary  it  is  a  vital  consideration 
for  all  those  who  desire  to  "see  life  and  see  it  whole" 
in  order  that  they  may  establish  a  true  scale  of 
comparative  values  and  a  right  relationship  between 
those  things  that  come  from  the  outside  and,  meet- 
ing those  that  come  from  within,  establish  that 
plexus  of  interacting  force  we  call  life.  As  for  the 
source  of  philosophic  truth,  Friar  Bacon  put  it  well 
when  he  said  "All  the  wisdom  of  philosophy  is  cre- 
ated by  God  and  given  to  the  philosophers,  and  it 
is  Himself  that  illumines  the  minds  of  men  in  all 
wisdom."  It  is  a  whismical  juxtaposition,  but  the 
first  pastor  of  the  Puritans  in  America,  the  Rev. 
John  Robinson,  testifies  to  the  same  effect.  "All 
truth,"  he  says,  "is  of  God  .  .  .  Wherefore  it 
followeth  that  nothing  true  in  right  reason  and 
sound  philosophy  can  be  false  in  divinity.  ...  I 
add,  though  the  truth  be  uttered  by  the  devil  him- 
self, yet  it  is  originally  of  God."  There  are  not  two 
sources  of  truth,  that  of  Divine  Revelation  on  the 
one  hand,  that  of  science  and  philosophy  and  all  the 
intellectual  works  of  man  on  the  other.  Truth  is 
one,  and  the  Source  is  one;  the  channels  of  com- 
munication alone  are  different.  But  truth  in  its 
finality,  the  Absolute,  the  noumenon  that  is  the 
substance  of  phenomena,  is  in  itself  not  a  thing  that 
can  be  directly  apprehended  by  man;  it  lies  within 
the  "ultra-violet"  rays  of  his  intellectual  spectrum. 
"The  trammels  of  the  body  prevent  man  from  know- 
ing God  in  Himself"  says  Philo,  "He  is  known  only 
in  the  Divine  forces  in  which  He  manifests  Him- 


A     WORKING     PHILOSOPHY  39 

self."  And  St.  Thomas:  "In  the  present  state  of 
life  in  which  the  soul  is  united  to  a  passable  body,  it 
is  impossible  for  the  intellect  to  understand  anything 
actually  except  by  turning  to  the  phantasm."  Re- 
ligion confesses  this,  philosophy  constantly  tends  to 
forget  it,  therefore  true  religion  speaks  always 
through  the  symbol,  rejecting,  because  it  transcends, 
the  intellectual  criterion,  while  philosophy  is  on  safe 
ground  only  when  it  unites  itself  with  religion,  test- 
ing its  own  conclusions  by  a  higher  reality,  and 
existing  not  as  a  rival  but  as  a  coadjutor. 

It  is  St.  Paul  who  declares  that  "God  has  never 
left  Himself  without  a  witness"  and  the  "witness" 
was  explicit,  however  clouded,  in  the  philosophies 
of  paganism.  Plato  and  Aristotle  knew  the  limita- 
tions of  man's  mind,  and  the  corrective  of  over- 
weaning  intellectuality  in  religion,  but  thereafter 
the  wisdom  faded  and  pride  ousted  humility,  with 
the  result  that  philosophy  became  not  light  but  dark- 
ness. Let  me  quote  from  the  great  twelfth  century 
philosopher,  Hugh  of  St.  Victor,  who  deserves  a 
better  fate  than  sepulture  in  the  ponderous  tomes 
of  Migne: 

"There  was  a  certain  wisdom  that  seemed  such 
to  them  that  knew  not  the  true  wisdom.  The  world 
found  it  and  began  to  be  puffed  up,  thinking  itself 
great  in  this.  Confiding  in  its  wisdom  it  became 
presumptuous  and  boasted  it  would  attain  the  high- 
est wisdom.  And  it  made  itself  a  ladder  of  the  face 
of  creation.  .  .  .  Then  those  things  which  were 
seen  were  known  and  there  were  other  things  which 
were  not  known;  and  through  those  which  were 


40      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

manifest  they  expected  to  reach  those  that  were 
hidden.  And  they  stumbled  and  fell  into  the  false- 
hoods of  their  own  imagining.  ...  So  God  made 
foolish  the  wisdom  of  this  world;  and  He  pointed 
out  another  wisdom,  which  seemed  foolishness  and 
was  not.  For  it  preached  Christ  crucified,  in  order 
that  truth  might  be  sought  in  humility.  But  the 
world  despised  it,  wishing  to  contemplate  the  works 
of  God,  which  He  had  made  a  source  of  wonder, 
and  it  did  not  wish  to  venerate  what  He  had  set  for 
imitation,  neither  did  it  look  to  its  own  disease,  seek- 
ing medicine  in  piety;  but  presuming  on  a  false 
health,  it  gave  itself  over  with  vain  curiosity  to  the 
study  of  alien  things." 

Precisely:  and  this  is  the  destiny  that  has  over- 
taken not  only  the  pagan  philosophy  of  which  Hugh 
of  St.  Victor  was  speaking,  but  also  that  which  fol- 
lowed after  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  from  Descartes 
to  Hobbes  and  Kant  and  Comte  and  Herbert  Spen- 
cer and  William  James.  The  jealously  intellec- 
tual philosophies  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
materialistic  and  mechanistic  substitutes  that  were 
offered  and  accepted  with  such  enthusiasm  after 
the  great  cleavage  between  religion  and  life,  are 
but  "the  falsehoods  of  their  own  imaginings"  of 
which  Hugh  of  St.  Victor  speaks,  for  they  were  cut 
off  from  the  stream  of  spiritual  verity,  and  are  los- 
ing themselves  in  the  desert  they  have  made. 

Meanwhile  they  have  played  their  part  in  shaping 
the  destinies  of  the  world,  and  it  was  an  ill  part,  if 
we  may  judge  from  the  results  that  showed  them- 
selves in  the  events  that  have  been  recorded  between 


A     WORKING     PHILOSOPHY  41 

the  year  1800  and  the  present  moment.  Just  what 
this  influence  was  in  determining  the  nature  of 
society,  of  industrial  civilization  and  of  the  political 
organism  I  shall  try  to  indicate  in  some  of  the  fol- 
lowing lectures,  but  apart  from  these  concrete  hap- 
penings, this  influence  was,  I  am  persuaded,  most 
disastrous  in  its  bearing  on  human  character. 
Neither  wealth  nor  power,  neither  education  nor 
environment,  not  even  the  inherent  tendencies  of 
race — the  most  powerful  of  all — can  avail  against 
the  degenerative  force  of  a  life  without  religion,  or, 
what  is  worse,  that  maintains  only  a  dessicated 
formula;  and  the  post-Renaissance  philosophies  are 
one  and  all  definitely  anti-religious  and  self-pro- 
claimed substitutes  for  religion.  As  such  they  were 
offered  and  accepted,  and  as  such  they  must  take 
their  share  of  the  responsibility  for  what  has  hap- 
pened. 

I  believe  we  must  and  can  retrace  our  steps  to 
that  point  in  time  when  a  right  philosophy  was 
abandoned,  and  begin  again.  There  is  no  impos- 
sibility or  even  difficulty  here.  History  is  not  a 
dead  thing,  a  thing  of  the  past;  it  is  eternally  pres- 
ent to  man,  and  this  is  one  of  the  sharp  differentia- 
tions between  man  and  beast.  The  material  mon- 
uments of  man  crumble  and  disappear,  but  the  spirit 
that  built  the  Parthenon  or  Reims  Cathedral,  that 
inspired  St.  Paul  on  Mars'  hill  or  forged  Magna 
Charta  or  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is, 
because  of  our  quality  as  men,  just  as  present  and 
operative  with  us  today,  if  we  will,  as  that  which 
sent  the  youth  of  ten  nations  into  a  righteous  war 


42      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

five  years  ago,  or  spoke  yesterday  through  some 
noble  action  that  you  or  I  may  have  witnessed.  It 
is  as  easy  for  us  to  accept  and  practice  the  philosophy 
of  St.  Thomas  or  the  divine  humanism  of  St.  Francis 
as  it  is  to  accept  the  philosophy  of  Mr.  Wells  or  the 
theories  of  Sir  Oliver  Lodge.  No  spiritual  thing 
dies,  or  even  grows  old,  nor  does  it  drift  back- 
ward in  the  dwindling  perspective  of  ancient  history, 
and  the  foolishest  saying  of  man  is  that  "you  can- 
not turn  back  the  hands  of  the  clock." 

It  is  simply  a  question  of  will,  and  will  is  simply 
a  question  of  desire  and  of  faith. 

Manifestly  I  cannot  be  expected  to  recreate  in  a 
few  words  this  philosophy  to  which  I  believe  we 
must  have  recourse  in  our  hour  of  need.  I  have  no 
ability  to  do  this  f in  any  case.  It  begins  with  St. 
Paul,  is  continued  through  St.  Augustine,  and  finds 
its  culmination  in  the  great  Mediaeval  group  of 
Duns  Scotus,  Albertus  Magnus,  Hugh  of  St.  Victor 
and  St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  I  do  not  know  of  any 
single  book  that  epitomizes  it  all  in  vital  form, 
though  Cardinal  Mercier  and  Dr.  De  Wulf  have 
written  much  that  is  stimulating  and  helpful.  I  can- 
not help  thinking  that  the  great  demand  today  is  for 
a  compact  volume  that  synthesizes  the  whole  mag- 
nificient  system  in  terms  not  of  history  and  scientific 
exegesis,  but  in  terms  of  life.  Plato  and  Aristotle 
are  so  preserved  to  man,  and  the  philosophers  of 
modernism  also;  it  is  only  tha  magisterial  and 
dynamic  philosophy  of  Christianity  that  is  diffused 
through  many  works,  some  of  them  still  untranslated 
and  all  quite  without  coordination,  save  St.  Thomas 


A      WORKING      PHILOSOPHY  43 

Aquinas  alone,  the  magnitude  of  whose  product 
staggers  the  human  mind  and  in  its  profuseness  de- 
feats its  own  ends.  We  need  no  more  histories  of 
philosophy,  but  we  need  an  epitome  of  Christian 
philosophy,  not  for  students  but  for  men. 

Such  an  epitome  I  am  not  fitted  to  offer,  but  there 
are  certain  rather  fundamental  conceptions  and  post- 
ulates that  run  counter  both  to  pagan  and  to  modern 
philosophy,  the  loss  of  which  out  of  life  has,  I  main- 
tain, much  to  do  with  our  present  estate,  and  that 
must  be  regained  before  we  can  go  forward  with 
any  reasonable  hope  of  betterment.  These  I  will 
try  to  indicate  as  well  as  I  can. 

Christian  philosophy  teaches,  in  so  far  as  it  deals 
with  the  relationship  between  man  and  these  divine 
forces  that  are  forever  building,  unbuilding  and  re- 
building the  fabric  of  life,  somewhat  as  follows: 

The  world  as  we  know  it,  man,  life  itself  as  it 
works  through  all  creation,  is  the  union  of  matter 
and  spirit;  and  matter  is  not  spirit,  nor  spirit  matter, 
nor  is  one  a  mode  of  the  other,  but  they  are  two  dif- 
ferent creatures.  Apart  from  this  union  of  matter 
and  spirit  there  is  no  life,  in  the  sense  in  which  we 
know  it,  and  severence  is  death.  "The  body"  says 
St.  Thomas,  "is  not  of  the  essence  of  the  soul;  but 
the  soul,  by  the  nature  of  its  essence,  can  be  united 
to  the  body,  so  that,  properly  speaking,  the  soul 
alone  is  not  the  species,  but  the  composite",  and 
Duns  Scotus  makes  clear  the  nature  and  origin  of 
this  common  "essence"  when  he  says  there  is  "on 
the  one  hand  God  as  Infinite  Actuality,  on  the  other 
spiritual  and  corporeal  substances  possessing  an 


44      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

homogeneous  common  element."  That  is  to  say; 
matter  and  spirit  are  both  the  result  of  the  divine 
creative  act,  and  though  separate,  and  in  a  sense 
opposed,  find  their  point  of  origin  in  the  Divine 
Actuality. 

The  created  world  is  the  concrete  manifestation 
of  matter,  through  which,  for  its  transformation 
and  redemption,  spirit  is  active  in  a  constant  pro- 
cess of  interpenetration  whereby  matter  itself  is  be- 
ing eternally  redeemed.  What  then  is  matter  and 
what  is  spirit?  The  question  is  of  sufficient  magni- 
tude to  absorb  all  the  time  assigned  to  these  lectures, 
with  the  strong  possibility  that  even  then  we  should 
be  scarcely  wiser  than  before.  For  my  own  pur- 
poses, however,  I  am  content  to  accept  the  definition 
of  matter  formulated  by  Duns  Scotus,  which  takes 
over  the  earlier  definition  of  Plotinus,  purges  it  of 
its  elements  of  pagan  error,  and  redeems  it  by 
Christian  insight. 

"Materia  Primo  Prima"  says  the  great  Francis- 
can, 'is  the  indeterminate  element  of  contingent 
things.  This  does  not  exist  in  Nature,  but  it  has 
reality  in  so  far  as  it  constitutes  the  term  of  God's 
creative  activity.  By  its  union  with  a  substantial 
form  it  becomes  endowed  with  the  attributes  of 
quantity,  and  becomes  Secundo  Prima.  Subject  to 
the  substantial  changes  of  Nature,  it  becomes  mat- 
ter as  we  see  it." 

It  is  this  "Materia  Primo  Prima,"  the  term  of 
God's  creative  activity,  that  is  eternally  subjected 
to  the  regenerative  process  of  spiritual  interpenetra- 
tion, and  the  result  is  organic  life. 


A     WORKING     PHILOSOPHY  45 

What  is  spirit?  The  creative  power  of  the 
Logos,  in  the  sense  in  which  St.  John  interprets 
and  corrects  the  early,  partial,  and  therefore  er- 
roneous theories  of  the  Stoics  and  of  Philo.  God 
the  Son,  the  Eternal  Word  of  the  Father,  "the 
brightness  of  His  glory  and  the  figure  of  His  Sub- 
stance." "God  of  God,  Light  of  Light,  very  God 
of  very  God,  begotten,  not  made,  being  of  one  sub- 
stance with  the  Father:  by  Whom  all  things  were 
made."  Pure  wisdom,  pure  will,  pure  energy,  un- 
conditioned by  matter,  but  creating  life  out  of  the 
operation  of  the  Holy  Spirit  on  and  through  matter, 
and  in  the  fullness  of  time  becoming  Incarnate  for 
the  purpose  of  the  final  redemption  of  man. 

Now  since  man  is  so  compact  of  matter  and 
spirit,  it  must  follow  that  he  cannot  lay  hold  of  pure 
spirit,  the  Absolute  that  lies  beyond  and  above  all 
material  conditioning,  except  through  the  medium 
of  matter,  through  its  figures,  its  symbols,  its  "phan- 
tasms." Says  St.  Thomas:  "From  material  things 
we  can  rise  to  some  kind  of  knowledge  of  immater- 
ial things,  but  not  to  the  perfect  knowledge  thereof." 
The  way  of  life  therefore,  is  the  incessant  endeavour 
of  man  sacramentally  to  approach  the  Absolute 
through  the  leading  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  so  running 
parallel  to  the  slow  perfecting  of  matter  which  is 
being  effected  by  the  same  operation.  So  matter 
itself  takes  on  a  certain  sanctity,  not  only  as  some- 
thing susceptible,  and  in  process,  of  perfection,  but 
as  the  vehicle  of  spirit  and  its  tabernacle,  since  in 
matter  spirit  is  actually  incarnate. 

From  this  process  follows  of  necessity  the  whole 


46      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

sacramental  system,  in  theology,  philosophy  and  op- 
eration, of  Christianity.  It  is  of  its  esse;  its  great 
original,  revolutionary  and  final  contribution  to  the 
wisdom  that  man  may  have  for  his  own,  and  it  fol- 
lows inevitably  from  the  basic  facts  of  the  Incarna- 
tion and  Redemption,  which  are  also  its  perfect 
showing  forth. 

Philosophically  this  is  the  great  contribution  of 
Christianity  and  for  fifteen  centuries  it  was  held 
implicitly  by  Christendom,  yet  it  was  rejected,  either 
wholly  or  in  part,  by  the  Protestant  organizations 
that  came  out  of  the  Reformation,  and  it  fell  into 
such  oblivion  that  outside  the  Catholic  Church  it  was 
not  so  much  ignored  or  rejected  as  totally  forgotten. 
Recently  a  series  of  lectures  were  delivered  at  King's 
College,  London,  by  various  carefully  chosen  author- 
ities, all  specialists  in  their  own  fields,  under  the  gen- 
eral title  "Mediaeval  Contributions  to  Modern  Civ- 
ilization," and  neither  the  pious  author  of  the  ad- 
dress on  "The  Religious  Contribution  of  the  Middle 
Ages,"  nor  the  learned  author  of  that  on  "Medi- 
aeval Philosophy,"  gave  evidence  of  ever  having 
heard  of  sacramental  philosophy.  It  may  be  that 
I  do  them  an  injustice,  and  that  they  would  offer 
as  excuse  the  incontestible  fact  that  Mediaevalism 
contributed  nothing  to  "modern  civilization,"  either 
in  religion  or  philosophy,  that  it  was  willing  to 
accept. 

The  peril  of  all  philosophies,  outside  that  of 
Christianity  as  it  was  developed  under  the  Catholic 
dispensation,  is  dualism,  and  many  have  fallen  into 
this  grave  error.  Now  dualism  is  not  only  the  re- 


A     WORKING     PHILOSOPHY  47 

versal  of  truth,  it  is  also  the  destroyer  of  righteous- 
ness. Sacramentalism  is  the  anthithesis  of  dualism. 
The  sanctity  of  matter  as  the  potential  of  spirit  and 
its  dwelling-place  on  earth;  the  humanizing  of  spirit 
through  its  condescension  to  man  through  the  mak- 
ing of  his  body  and  all  created  things  its  earthly 
tabernacle,  give,  when  carried  out  into  logical  de- 
velopment, a  meaning  to  life,  a  glory  to  the  world, 
an  elucidation  of  otherwise  unsolvable  mysteries, 
and  an  impulse  toward  noble  living  no  other  system 
can  afford.  It  is  a  real  philosophy  of  life,  a  stand- 
ard of  values,  a  criterion  of  all  possible  postulates, 
and  as  its  loss  meant  the  world's  peril,  so  its  recovery 
may  mean  its  salvation. 

Now  as  the  philosophy  of  Christianity  is  purely 
and  essentially  sacramental,  so  must  be  the  operation 
of  God  through  the  Church.  This  "Body  of  Christ" 
on  earth  is  indeed  a  fellowship,  a  veritable  com- 
munion of  the  faithful,  whether  living  or  dead,  but  it 
is  also  a  divine  organism  which  lives,  and  in  which 
each  member  lives,  not  by  the  preaching  of  the 
Word,  not  even  by  and  through  the  fellowship  in 
living  and  worship,  but  through  the  ordained  chan- 
nels of  grace  known  as  the  Sacraments.  In  accord- 
ance with  the  sacramental  system,  every  material 
thing  is  proclaimed  as  possessing  in  varying  degree 
sacramental  potentiality,  while  seven  great  Sacra- 
ments were  instituted  to  be,  each  after  its  own 
fashion,  a  special  channel  for  the  inflowing  of  the 
power  of  the  Divine  Actuality.  Each  is  a  symbol, 
just  as  so  many  other  created  things  are,  or  may 
become,  symbols,  but  they  are  also  realities,  veri- 


48       TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

table  media  for  the  veritable  communications  of  veri- 
table divine  grace.  Here  is  the  best  definition  I 
know,  that  of  Hugh  of  St.  Victor.  "A  sacrament  is 
the  corporeal  or  material  element  set  out  sensibly, 
representing  from  its  similitude,  signifying  from  its 
institution,  and  containing  from  its  sanctification, 
some  invisible  and  spiritual  grace."  This  is  the  un- 
varying and  invariable  doctrine  of  historic  Chris- 
tianity, and  the  reason  for  the  existence  of  the 
Church  as  a  living  and  functioning  organism.  The 
whole  sacramental  system  is  in  a  sense  an  extension, 
in  time,  of  the  Redemption,  just  as  one  particular 
Sacrament,  the  Holy  Eucharist,  is  also  in  a  sense  an 
extension  of  the  Incarnation,  as  it  is  also  an  extension, 
in  time,  of  the  Atonement,  the  Sacrifice  of  Calvary. 

The  Incarnation  and  the  Redemption  are  not  ac- 
complished facts,  completed  nineteen  centuries  ago; 
they  are  processes  that  still  continue,  and  their  term 
is  fixed  only  by  the  total  regeneration  and  perfecting 
of  matter,  while  the  Seven  Sacraments  are  the  chief- 
est  amongst  an  infinity  of  sacramental  processes 
which  are  the  agencies  of  this  eternal  transfigura- 
tion. 

God  the  Son  became  Incarnate,  not  only  to  ac- 
complish the  redemption  of  men  as  yet  unborn,  for 
endless  ages,  through  the  Sacrifice  of  Calvary,  but 
also  to  initiate  and  forever  maintain  a  new  method 
whereby  this  result  was  to  be  more  perfectly  at- 
tained; that  is  to  say,  the  Church,  working  through 
the  specific  sacramental  agencies  He  had  ordained, 
or  was  from  time  to  time  to  ordain,  through  His 
everlasting  presence  in  the  Church  He  had  brought 


A     WORKING      PHILOSOPHY  49 

into  being  at  Pentecost.  He  did  not  come  to  estab- 
lish in  material  form  a  Kingdom  of  Heaven  on 
Earth,  or  to  provide  for  its  ultimate  coming.  He 
indeed  established  a  Spiritual  Kingdom,  His  Church, 
"in  the  world,  not  of  it,"  which  is  a  very  different 
matter  indeed,  as  the  centuries  have  proved.  His 
Kingdom  is  not  of  this  world,  nor  will  it  be  estab- 
lished here.  There  has  been  no  absolute  advance  in 
human  development  since  the  Incarnation.  Nations 
rise  and  fall,  epochs  wax  and  wane,  civilizations 
grow  out  of  savagery,  crest  and  sink  back  into  sav- 
agery and  oblivion.  Redemption  is  for  the  indi- 
vidual, not  for  the  race,  nor  yet  for  society  as  a 
whole.  Then,  and  only  then,  and  under  that  form, 
it  is  sure,  however  long  may  be  the  period  of  its  ac- 
complishment. "Time  is  the  ratio  of  the  resistance 
of  matter  to  the  interpenetration  of  spirit,"  and  by 
this  resistance  is  the  duration  of  time  determined. 
When  it  shall  have  been  wholly  overcome  then  "time 
shall  be  no  more." 

See  therefore  how  perfect  is  the  correspondence 
between  the  Sacraments  and  the  method  of  life 
where  they  are  the  agents,  and  which  they  symbol- 
ically set  forth.  There  is  in  each  case  the  material 
form  and  the  spiritual  substance,  or  energy.  Water, 
chrism,  oil,  the  spoken  word,  the  touch  of  hands,  the 
sign  of  the  cross,  and  finally  and  supremely  the  bread 
and  wine  of  the  Holy  Eucharist.  Each  a  material 
thing,  but  each  representing,  signifying  and  contain- 
ing some  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  real,  absolute  and 
potent.  So  matter  and  spirit  are  linked  together 
in  every  operation  of  the  Church,  from  the  cradle 


5O      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

to  the  grave,  and  man  has  ever  before  him  the  eter- 
nal revelation  of  this  linked  union  of  matter  and 
spirit  in  his  life,  the  eternal  teaching  of  the  honour 
of  the  material  thing  through  its  agency  and  through 
its  existence  as  the  subject  for  redemption.  So  also, 
through  the  material  association,  and  the  divine 
condescension  to  his  earthly  and  fallible  estate  (lim- 
ited by  association  with  matter  only  to  inadequate 
presentation)  he  makes  the  Spirit  of  God  his  own, 
to  dwell  therewith  after  the  fashion  of  mant 

And  how  much  this  explains  and  justifies:  "Man 
approaches,  and  must  always  approach,  spiritual 
things  not  only  through  material  forms  but  by  means 
of  material  agencies.  The  highest  and  most  beauti- 
ful things,  those  where  the  spirit  seems  to  achieve 
its  loftiest  reaches,  are  frequently  associated  with 
the  grossest  and  most  unspiritual  forms,  yet  the  very 
splendour  of  the  spiritual  verity  redeems  and  glor- 
ifies the  material  agency,  while  on  the  other  hand 
the  homeliness,  and  even  animal  quality,  of  the  ma- 
terial thing,  brings  to  man,  with  a  poignancy  and  an 
appeal  that  are  incalculable,  the  spiritual  thing  that, 
in  its  absolute  essence,  would  be  so  far  beyond  his 
ken  and  his  experience  and  his  powers  of  assimila- 
tion that  it  would  be  inoperative. 

This  is  the  true  Humanism ;  not  the  fictitious  and 
hollow  thing  that  was  the  offspring  of  neo-pagan- 
ism  and  took  to  itself  a  title  to  which  it  had  no  claim. 
Held  tacitly  or  consciously  by  the  men  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  from  the  immortal  philosopher  to  the  im- 
mortal but  nameless  craftsman,  it  was  the  force  that 
built  up  the  noble  social  structure  of  the  time  and 


A     WORKING      PHILOSOPHY  51 

poised  man  himself  in  a  sure  equilibrium.  Already 
it  had  of  necessity  developed  the  whole  scheme  of 
religious  ceremonial  and  given  art  a  new  content 
and  direction  through  its  new  service.  By  analogy 
and  association  all  material  things  that  could  be  so 
used  were  employed  as  figures  and  symbols,  as  well 
as  agencies,  through  the  Sacraments,  and  after  a 
fashion  that  struck  home  to  the  soul  through  the 
organs  of  sense.  Music,  vestments,  incense,  flowers, 
poetry,  dramatic  action,  were  linked  with  the  major 
arts  of  architecture,  painting  and  sculpture,  and  all 
became  not  only  ministers  to  the  emotional  faculties 
but  direct  appeals  to  the  intellect  through  their 
function  as  poignant  symbols.  So  art  received  its 
soul,  and  was  almost  a  living  creature  until  matter 
and  spirit  were  again  divorced  in  the  death  that 
severed  them  during  the  Reformation.  Thereafter 
religion  had  entered  upon  a  period  of  slow  dessica- 
tion  and  sterilization  wherever  the  symbol  was  cast 
away  with  the  Sacraments  and  the  faith  and  the  phil- 
osophy that  had  made  it  live.  The  bitter  hostility 
to  the  art  and  the  liturgies  and  the  ceremonial  of  the 
Catholic  faith  is  due  far  less  to  ignorance  of  the 
meaning  and  function  of  art  and  to  an  inherited 
jealousy  of  its  quality  and  its  power,  than  it  is  to 
the  conscious  and  determined  rejection  of  the  essen- 
tial philosophy  of  Christianity,  which  is  sacrament- 
alism. 

The  whole  system  was  of  an  almost  sublime  per- 
fection and  simplicity,  and  the  formal  Sacraments 
were  both  its  goal  and  its  type.  If  they  had  been 
of  the  same  value  and  identical  in  nature  they  would 


52      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

have  failed  of  perfect  exposition,  in  the  sense  in 
which  they  were  types  and  symbols.  They  were 
not  this,  for  while  six  of  the  explicit  seven  were  sub- 
stantially of  one  mode,  there  was  one  where  the  con- 
ditions that  held  elsewhere  were  transcended,  and 
where,  in  addition  to  the  two  functions  it  was  insti- 
tuted to  perform  it  gave,  through  its  similitude,  the 
clear  revelation  of  the  most  significant  and  poignant 
fact  in  the  vast  mystery  of  life.  I  mean,  of  course, 
the  Holy  Eucharist,  commonly  called  the  Mass. 

If  matter  is  per  se  forever  inert,  unchangeable, 
indestructible,  then  we  fall  into  the  dilemma  of  a 
materialistic  monism  on  the  one  hand,  Manichaean 
dualism  on  the  other.  Even  under  the  most  spiritual 
interpretation  we  could  offer — that,  shall  we  say,  of 
those  today  who  try  to  run  with  the  hare  of  religion 
and  hunt  with  the  hounds  of  rationalistic  material- 
ism— matter  and  spirit  unite  in  man  as  body  and 
soul,  and  in  the  Sacraments  as  the  vehicle  and  the 
essence,  but  temporally  and  temporarily;  doomed  al' 
ways  to  ultimate  severance  by  death  in  the  one  case, 
by  the  completion  of  the  sacramental  process  in  the 
other.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  object  of  the  uni- 
verse and  of  time  is  the  constant  redemption  and 
transformation  of  matter  through  its  interpenetra- 
tion  by  spirit  in  the  power  of  God  the  Holy  Ghost, 
then  we  escape  the  falsities  of  dualism,  while  in  the 
miracle  of  the  Mass  we  find  the  type  and  the  show- 
ing forth  of  the  constant  process  of  life  whereby 
every  instant,  matter  itself  is  being  changed  and  glor- 
ified and  transferred  from  the  plane  of  matter  to 
the  plane  of  spirit. 


A     WORKING     PHILOSOPHY  53 

If  this  is  so :  if  the  Incarnation  and  the  Redemp- 
tion are  not  only  fundamental  facts  but  also  types 
and  symbols  of  the  divine  process  forever  going  on 
here  on  earth,  then,  while  the  other  Sacraments  are 
in  themselves  not  only  instruments  of  grace  but 
manifestations  of  that  process  whereby  in  all  things 
matter  is  used  as  the  vehicle  of  spirit,  the  Mass, 
transcending  them  all,  is  not  only  Communion,  not 
only  a  Sacrifice  acceptable  before  God,  it  is  also 
the  unique  symbol  of  the  redemption  and  transform- 
ation of  matter;  since,  of  all  the  Sacraments,  it  is 
the  only  one  where  the  very  physical  qualities  of 
the  material  vehicle  are  transformed,  and  while  the 
accidents  alone  remain,  the  substance,  finite  and  per- 
ishable, becomes,  in  an  instant  of  time  and  by  the 
operation  of  God,  infinite  and  immortal. 

It  is  to  sacramentalism  then  that  we  must  return, 
not  only  in  religion  and  its  practice,  but  in  philos- 
ophy, if  we  are  to  establish  a  firm  foundation  for 
that  newer  society  and  civilization  that  are  to  help 
us  to  achieve  the  "Great  Peace."  Antecedent  sys- 
tems failed,  and  subsequent  systems  have  failed;  in 
this  alone,  the  philosophy  of  Christianity,  is  there 
safety,  for  it  alone  is  consonant  with  the  revealed 
will  of  God. 


Ill 

THE  SOCIAL  ORGANISM 

C  OCIETY,  that  is  to  say,  the  association  in  life 
of  men,  women  and  children,  is  the  fundamental 
fact  of  life,  and  this  is  so  whether  the  association 
is  of  the  family,  the  school,  the  community,  industry 
or  government.  Everything  else  is  simply  a  series 
of  forms,  arrangements  and  devices  by  which  society 
works,  either  for  good  or  ill.  Man  makes  or  mars 
himself  in  and  through  society.  He  is  responsible 
for  his  own  soul,  but  if  he  sees  only  this  and  works 
directly  for  his  soul's  salvation,  disregarding  the 
society  of  which  he  is  a  part,  he  may  lose  it,  whereas, 
if  he  is  faithful  to  society  and  honourably  plays  his 
part  as  a  social  animal  with  a  soul,  he  will  very 
probably  save  it,  even  though  he  may  for  the  time 
have  quite  ignored  its  existence.  Man  is  a  member 
of  a  family,  a  pupil  under  education,  a  worker  and  a 
citizen.  In  all  these  relationships  he  is  a  part  of 
a  social  group;  he  is  also  a  component  part  of  the 
human  race  and  linked  in  some  measure  to  every 
other  member  thereof  whether  living  or  dead.  Into 
every  organization  or  institution  in  which  he  is  in- 
volved during  his  lifetime — family,  school,  art  or 
craft,  trade  union,  state,  church — enters  the  social 
equation.  If  society  is  ill  organized  either  in  theory 
or  in  practice,  in  any  or  all  of  its  manifestations,  then 
the  engines  or  devices  by  which  it  operates  will  be 

54 


THE     SOCIAL     ORGANISM  55 

impotent  for  good.  Defective  society  cannot  pro- 
duce either  a  good  fundamental  law,  a  good  philos- 
ophy, a  good  art,  or  any  other  thing.  Conversely, 
these,  when  brought  forth  under  an  wholesome  so- 
ciety, will  decay  and  perish  when  society  degener- 
ates. 

In  its  large  estate,  that  is,  comprehending  all  the 
minor  groups,  as  a  nation,  a  people  or  an  era,  so- 
ciety is  always  in  a  state  of  unstable  equilibrium, 
tending  either  toward  better  or  worse.  It  may  in- 
deed be  of  the  very  essence  of  human  life,  but  it  is  a 
plant  of  tender  growth  and  needs  delicate  nurture 
and  jealous  care;  a  small  thing  may  work  it  irrepar- 
able injury.  It  may  reach  very  great  heights  of  per- 
fection and  spread  over  a  continent,  as  during  the 
European  Middle  Ages;  it  may  sink  to  low  depths 
with  an  equal  dominion,  as  in  the  second  dark  ages 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  Sometimes  little  enclaves 
of  high  value  hide  themselves  in  the  midst  of  de- 
gradation, as  Venice  and  Ireland  in  the  Dark  Ages. 
Always,  by  the  grace  of  God,  the  primary  social  unit, 
the  family  may,  and  frequently  does,  achieve  and 
maintain  both  purity  and  beauty  when  the  world 
without  riots  in  ruin  and  profligacy. 

I  have  taken  the  problem  of  the  organization  of  so- 
ciety as  the  first  to  be  considered,  for  it  is  funda- 
mental. If  society  is  of  the  wrong  shape  it  does 
not  matter  in  the  least  how  intelligent  and  admirable 
may  be  the  devices  we  construct  for  the  operation 
of  government  or  industry  or  education;  they  may 
be  masterly  products  of  human  intelligence  but  they 
will  not  work,  whereas  on  the  other  hand  a  sane, 


56      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

wholesome  and  decent  society  can  so  interpret  and 
administer  clumsy  and  defective  instruments  that 
they  will  function  to  admiration.  A  perfect  society 
would  need  no  such  engines  at  all,  but  a  perfect  so- 
ciety implies  perfect  individuals,  and  I  think  we  are 
now  persuaded  that  a  society  of  this  nature  is  a 
purely  academic  proposition  both  now  and  in  the 
calculable  future.  What  we  have  to  do  is  to  take 
mankind  as  it  is;  made  up  of  infinitely  varied  per- 
sonalities ranging  from  the  idiot  to  the  "super-man" ; 
cruel  and  compassionate,  covetous  and  self-sacrific- 
ing, silly  and  erudite,  cynical  and  emotional,  vulgar 
and  cultured,  brutal  and  fastidious,  shameful  in  their 
degradation  and  splendid  in  their  honour  and  chiv- 
alry, and  by  the  franchise  of  liberty  and  the  binding 
of  law,  facilitate  in  every  way  the  process  whereby 
they  themselves  work  out  their  own  salvation.  You 
cannot  impose  morality  by  statute  or  guarantee  either 
character  or  intelligence  by  the  perfection  of  the 
machine.  Every  institution,  good  or  bad,  is  the 
result  of  growth  from  many  human  impulses,  not  the 
creation  of  autocratic  fiat.  But  growth  may  be  im- 
peded, hastened,  or  suspended,  and  the  most  that 
can  be  done  is  to  offer  incentives  to  action,  remove 
the  obstacles  to  development,  and  establish  condi- 
tions and  influences  that  make  more  easy  the  finding 
of  the  right  way. 

Now  it  seems  to  me  that  the  two  greatest  ob- 
stacles to  the  development  of  a  right  society  have 
been  first,  the  enormous  scale  in  which  everything 
of  late  has  been  cast,  and  second,  that  element  in 
modern  democracy  which  denies  essential  differences 


THE     SOCIAL    ORGANISM  57 

in  human  character,  capacity  and  potential,  and  so 
logically  prohibits  social  distinctions,  and  refuses 
them  formal  sanction  or  their  recognition  through 
conferred  honours.  In  questioning  the  validity  and 
the  value  of  these  two  factors,  imperialism  and  social 
democracy,  and  in  suggesting  substitutes,  I  am,  I 
suppose,  attacking  precisely  the  two  institutions 
which  are  today — or  at  all  events  have  been  until 
very  recently — held  in  most  conspicuous  honour  by 
the  majority  of  people,  but  the  question  is  at  least 
debateable,  and  for  my  own  part  I  have  no  alterna- 
tive but  to  assert  their  mistaken  nature,  and  to  offer 
the  best  I  can  in  the  way  of  substitutes. 

The  question  of  imperialism,  of  a  gross  and  un- 
human  and  therefore  absolutely  wrong  scale,  is  one 
that  will  enter  into  almost  all  of  the  matters  with 
which  I  propose  to  deal,  certainly  with  industrialism, 
with  politics,  with  education,  with  religion,  as  well  as 
with  the  immediate  problem  of  the  social  organism, 
for  not  only  has  it  destroyed  the  human  scale  in 
human  life,  and  therefore  brought  it  into  the  danger 
of  immediate  destruction,  but  it  has  also  been  a 
factor  in  establishing  the  quantitative  standard  in  all 
things,  in  place  of  the  qualitative  standard,  and  this, 
in  itself,  is  simply  the  antecedent  of  well-merited 
catastrophe.  In  considering  the  social  organism, 
therefore,  we  must  have  in  mind  that  this  is  inti- 
mately affected  by  every  organic  institution  which 
man  has  developed  and  into  which  he  enters  in  com- 
mon with  others  of  his  kind. 

The  situation  as  it  confronts  us  today  is  one  in 
which  man  by  his  very  energy  and  the  stimulus  of 


58       TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

those  cosmic  energies  he  has  so  astonishingly  mas- 
tered, has  got  far  beyond  his  depth.  I  say  man  has 
mastered  these  energies;  yes,  but  this  was  true  only 
of  a  brief  period  in  the  immediate  past.  They  now 
have  mastered  him.  It  is  the  old  story  of  the  Frank- 
enstein monster  over  again.  Man  is  not  omnipotent, 
he  is  not  God.  There  are  limits  beyond  which  he 
cannot  go  without  coming  in  peril  of  death.  An  iso- 
lated individual  here  and  there  may  become  super- 
man, perhaps,  though  at  grievous  peril  to  his  own 
soul,  and  it  is  conceivable  that  to  such  an  one  it 
might  be  possible  to  live  beyond  the  human  scale, 
though  hardly.  If  one  could  envisage  so  awful  a 
thing  as  a  community  made  up  entirely  of  super- 
men, one  might  concede  that  here  also  the  human 
scale  might  be  exceeded  without  danger  of  catastro- 
phe. With  society  as  it  is,  and  always  will  be,  a 
welter  of  defectives  and  geniuses  in  small  numbers 
and  a  vast  majority  of  just  plain  men,  with  all  that 
that  implies,  the  breaking  through  into  the  imperial 
scale  is  simply  a  letting  in  the  jungle;  walls  and 
palings  and  stockades,  the  delicate  fabrics  of  archi- 
tecture, the  clever  institutions  of  law,  the  thin  red 
line  of  the  army,  all  melt,  crumble,  are  overcome 
by  the  onrush  of  primordial  things,  and  where  once 
was  the  white  man's  city  is  now  the  eternal  jungle, 
and  the  vines  and  thrusting  roots  and  rank  herbage 
blot  out  the  very  memory  of  a  futile  civilization, 
while  the  monkey  and  the  jackal  and  the  python 
come  again  into  their  heritage. 

Alexander  and  Caesar,  Charles  V  and  Louis  XIV 
and  Napoleon  and  Disraeli  and  William  III  could 


THE     SOCIAL    ORGANISM  59 

function  for  a  few  brief  years  beyond  the  limits  of 
the  human  scale,  though  even  they  had  an  end,  but 
you  cannot  link  imperialism  and  democracy  without 
the  certainty  of  an  earlier  and  a  more  ignominious 
fall. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  malignant  and  path- 
ological quality  of  the  quantitative  standard.  It  is 
indeed  not  only  the  nemesis  of  culture  but  even  of 
civilization  itself.  Out  of  this  same  gross  scale  of 
things  come  many  other  evils;  great  states  subsist- 
ing on  the  subjugation  and  exploitation  of  small  and 
alien  peoples;  great  cities  which  when  they  exceed 
more  than  100,000  in  population  are  a  menace,  when 
they  exceed  1,000,000  are  a  crime;  division  of 
labour  and  specialization  which  degrade  men  to  the 
level  of  machines;  concentration  and  segregation  of 
industries,  the  factory  system,  high  finance  and  in- 
ternational finance,  capitalism,  trades-unionism  and 
the  International,  standardized  education,  "metro- 
politan" newspapers,  pragmatic  philosophy,  and 
churches  "run  on  business  methods"  and  recruited  by 
advertising  and  "publicity  agents." 

Greater  than  all,  however,  is  the  social  poison 
that  effects  society  with  pernicious  anaemia  through 
cutting  man  off  from  his  natural  social  group  and 
making  of  him  an  undistinguishable  particle  in  a  slid- 
ing stream  of  grain.  Man  belongs  to  his  family,  his 
neighbourhood,  his  local  trade  or  craft  guild  and  to 
his  parish  church:  the  essence  of  wholesome  associ- 
ation is  that  a  man  should  work  with,  through  and 
by  those  whom  he  knows  personally — and  perferably 
so  well  that  he  calls  them  all  by  their  first  names. 


60      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  today  he  works  with,  through 
and  by  the  individuals  whom  he  probably  has  never 
seen,  and  frequently  would,  as  a  matter  of  personal 
taste,  hesitate  to  recognize  if  he  did  see  them.  He 
belongs  to  the  "local"  of  a  union  which  is  a  part 
of  a  labour  organization  which  covers  the  entire 
United  States  and  is  controlled  in  all  essential  mat- 
ters from  a  point  from  one  hundred  to  two  thousand 
miles  away.  He  votes  for  mayor  with  a  group  of 
men,  less  than  one  per  cent  of  whom  he  knows  per- 
sonally (unless  he  is  a  professional  politician),  with 
another  group  for  state  officers,  and  with  the  whole 
voting  population  of  the  United  States,  for  Presi- 
dent. If  he  goes  to  church  in  a  city  he  finds  him- 
self amongst  people  drawn  from  every  ward  and 
outlying  district,  if  he  mixes  in  "society"  he  associ- 
ates with  those  from  everywhere,  perhaps,  except 
his  own  neighbourhood..  Only  when  he  is  in  col- 
lege, in  his  club  or  in  his  secret  society  lodge  or  the 
quarters  of  his  ward  boss  does  he  find  himself  in 
intimate  social  relations  with  human  beings  of 
like  mind  and  a  similar  social  status.  He  is  a 
cog  in  a  wheel,  a  thing,  a  point  of  potential,  a 
lonely  and  numerical  unit,  instead  of  a  gregarious 
human  animal  rejoicing  in  his  friends  and  com- 
panions, and  working,  playing  and  quarreling  with 
them,  as  God  made  him  and  meant  him  to  be  and 
to  do. 

Of  course  the  result  of  this  is  that  men  are  forced 
into  unnatural  associations,  many  of  which  are  purely 
artificial  and  all  of  which  are  unsound.  It  is  true 
that  the  trade  union,  the  professional  society,  the 


THE    SOCIAL    ORGANISM  6l 

club  are  natural  and  wholesome  expressions  of  com- 
mon and  intimate  interests,  but  they  acquire  a  false 
value  when  they  are  not  balanced  and  regulated  by  a 
prior  and  more  compelling  association  which  cuts, 
not  vertically  but  horizontally  through  society,  that 
is  to  say,  the  neighbourhood  or  community  group. 
The  harsh  and  perilous  division  into  classes  and 
castes  which  is  now  universal,  with  its  development 
of  "class  consciousness,"  is  the  direct  and  inevitable 
result  of  this  imperial  scale  in  life  which  has  annihi- 
lated the  social  unit  of  human  scale  and  brought  in 
the  gigantic  aggregations  of  peoples,  money,  manu- 
facture and  labourers,  where  man  can  no  longer 
function  either  as  a  human  unit  or  an  essential  factor 
in  a  workable  society. 

It  is  hard  to  see  just  how  we  are  to  re-fashion  this 
impossible  society  in  terms  even  nearly  approaching 
the  normal  and  the  human.  It  is  universal,  and  it  is 
accepted  by  everyone  as  very  splendid  and  quite  the 
greatest  achievement  of  man.  It  is  practically  im- 
possible for  any  one  today  to  conceive  of  a  world 
where  great  empires,  populous  cities,  mills  and  fac- 
tories and  iron-works  in  their  thousands,  and  employ- 
ing their  millions  through  their  billions  of  capitaliza- 
tion, where  the  stock  exchange  and  the  great  bank- 
ing houses  and  the  insurance  companies  and  the  de- 
partment stores,  the  nation-wide  trade  unions  and 
professional  associations  and  educational  founda- 
tions and  religious  corporations,  do  not  play  their 
predominant  part.  Nevertheless  they  are  an  aggre- 
gation of  false  values,  their  influence  is  anti-social, 
and  their  inherent  weakness  was  so  obviously  re- 


62   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT  PEACE 

vealed  through  the  War  and  the  Peace  that  it  has 
generally  escaped  notice. 

There  seem  but  two  ways  in  which  the  true  scale 
of  life  can  be  restored;  either  these  institutions  will 
continue,  growing  greater  and  more  unwieldy  with 
increasing  speed  until  they  burst  in  anarchy  and 
chaos,  and  after  ruin  and  long  rest  we  begin  all  over 
again  (as  once  before  after  the  bursting  of  Roman 
imperialism),  or  we  shall  repeat  history  (as  we  al- 
ways do)  only  after  another  fashion  and,  learning 
as  we  always  can  from  the  annals  of  monasticism, 
build  our  small  communities  of  the  right  shape  and 
scale  in  the  very  midst  of  the  imperial  states  them- 
selves, so  becoming  perhaps  the  leavening  of  the 
lump.  This  of  course  is  what  the  monasteries  of 
St.  Benedict  did  in  the  sixth  century  and  those  of 
the  Cluniacs  and  the  Cistercians  in  the  eleventh,  and 
it  is  what  the  Franciscans  and  Dominicans  tried  to 
do  in  the  fourteenth  century,  and  failed  because  the 
fall  of  the  cultural  and  historic  wave  had  already 
begun. 

The  trouble  today  with  nearly  all  schemes  of  re- 
form and  regeneration  is  that  they  are  infected 
with  the  very  imperialism  in  scale  that  has  pro- 
duced the  conditions  they  would  redeem.  Socialism 
is  now  as  completely  materialistic  as  the  old  capital- 
ism, and  as  international  in  its  scope  and  methods. 
Anarchy  is  becoming  imperial  and  magnificent  in  its 
operations.  Secular  reformers  must  organize  vast 
committees  with  intricate  ramifications  and  elaborate 
systems  supported  by  "drives"  for  money  which 
must  run  into  at  least  seven  figures,  and  by  vast  and 


THE     SOCIAL     ORGANISM  63 

efficient  bureaus  for  propaganda,  before  they  can 
begin  operations,  and  then  the  chief  reliance  for  suc- 
cess is  frequently  placed  on  legislation  enacted  by  the 
highest  lawmaking  bodies  in  the  land.  Even  re- 
ligion has  now  surrendered  to  the  same  obsession  of 
magnitude  and  efficiency,  and  nothing  goes  (or  tries 
to,  it  doesn't  always  succeed)  unless  it  is  conceived 
in  gigantic  "nation-wide"  terms  and  is  "put  across" 
by  efficiency  experts,  highly  paid  organizers,  elabor- 
ate "teams"  of  propagandists  and  solicitors,  and 
plenty  of  impressive  advertising.  A  good  deal  can  be 
bought  this  way,  but  it  will  not  "stay  bought,"  for  no 
reform  of  any  sort  can  be  established  after  any  such 
fashion,  since  reform  begins  in  and  with  the  individ- 
ual, and  if  it  succeeds  at  all  it  will  be  by  the  cumu- 
lative process. 

I  shall  speak  of  this  element  of  scale  in  every 
succeeding  lecture,  for  it  vitiates  every  institution  we 
have.  Here,  where  I  am  dealing  with  society  in  it- 
self, I  can  only  say  that  I  believe  the  sane  and  whole- 
some society  of  the  future  will  eliminate  great  cities 
and  great  corporations  of  every  sort.  It  will  re- 
verse the  whole  system  of  specialization  and  the  seg- 
regration  and  unification  of  industries  and  the  divi- 
sion of  labour.  It  will  build  upward  from  the  pri- 
mary unit  of  the  family,  through  the  neighbourhood, 
to  the  small,  and  closely  knit,  and  self-supporting 
community,  and  so  to  the  state  and  the  final  unifying 
force  which  links  together  a  federation  of  states.  In 
general  it  will  be  a  return  in  principle,  though  not 
in  form,  to  the  social  organization  of  a  Mediaeval 
Europe  before  the  extinction  of  feudalism  on  the 


64      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

Continent,  and  the  suppression  of  the  monasteries 
and  the  enclosure  of  the  common  lands  in  England. 

The  grave  perils  of  this  false  scale  in  human  so- 
ciety have  been  recognized  by  many  individuals  ever 
since  the  thing  itself  became  operative,  and  every 
Utopia  conceived  by  man  during  the  last  two  cen- 
turies, whether  it  was  theoretical  or  actually  put  into 
ephemeral  practice,  has  been  couched  in  terms  of 
revolt  away  from  imperialism  and  towards  the  unit 
of  human  scale.  In  every  case  however,  the  intro- 
duction of  some  form  of  communism  has  been  the 
ruin  of  those  projects  actually  materialized,  for  this 
in  itself  is  imperialistic  in  its  nature.  Communism 
implies  the  standard  of  the  gross  aggregate,  the  de- 
nial of  human  differentiation  and  the  quantitative 
standard,  as  well  as  the  elimination  of  private  prop- 
erty and  the  negation  of  sacred  individuality.  Its 
institution  implies  an  almost  immediate  descent  into 
anarchy  with  a  sequent  dictatorship  and  autocracy, 
for  it  is  the  reversal  of  the  foundation  laws  of  life. 
Such  reversals  cannot  last,  nothing  can  last  that  is 
inimical  to  flourishing  life ;  it  may  triumph  for  a  day 
but  life  itself  sloughs  it  off  as  a  sound  body  rids  itself 
of  some  foreign  substance  through  the  sore  that 
festers,  bursts  and,  the  septic  conditions  done  away 
with,  heals  itself  and  returns  to  normal. 

Now  the  inhuman  scale  has  produced  one  set  of 
septic  conditions  in  society  while  what  is  commonly 
called  "democratization"  has  produced  another.  We 
have  a  bloated  society,  but  also  we  have  one  in 
which  a  false  theory  has  grown  up  and  been  put 
in  practice,  in  accordance  with  which  an  uniformity 


THE     SOCIAL     ORGANISM  65 

of  human  kind  has  been  assumed  which  never  has 
existed  and  does  not  now,  and  in  the  effort  to  en- 
force this  false  theory  the  achievement  of  distinction 
has  been  impeded,  leadership  discouraged  and  lead- 
ers largely  eliminated,  the  process  of  leveling  down- 
ward carried  to  a  very  dangerous  point,  the  sane 
and  vital  organization  of  society  brought  near  to  an 
end  and  a  peculiarly  vicious  scale  and  standard  of 
social  values  established.  I  have  urged  the  return 
to  human  scale  in  human  associations,  but  this  does 
not  imply  any  admixture  of  communism,  which  is 
its  very  antithesis,  still  less  does  it  permit  the  re- 
tention of  the  theoretical  uniformity  and  the  unes- 
capable  leveling  process  of  so-called  democracy. 

Before  the  law  all  men  are  equal,  that  is,  they  are 
entitled  to  even-handed  justice.  Before  God  all 
men  are  equal,  that  is,  they  are  granted  charity  and 
mercy  which  transcends  the  law,  also  they  possess 
immortal  souls  of  equal  value.  Here  their  equality 
stops.  In  every  other  respect  they  vary  in  char- 
acter, capacity,  intelligence  and  potentiality  for  de- 
velopment along  any  or  all  these  lines,  almost  be- 
yond the  limits  of  computation.  A  sane  society  will 
recognize  this,  it  will  organize  itself  accordingly,  it 
will  deny  to  one  what  it  will  concede  to  another,  it 
will  foster  emulation  and  reward  accomplishment, 
and  it  will  add  another  category  to  those  in  which 
all  men  are  equal,  that  is,  the  freest  scope  for  ad- 
vancement, and  the  greatest  facility  for  passing  from 
one  social  group  into  another,  the  sole  test  being 
demonstrated  merit. 

I  am  prepared  at  this  point  to  use  the  word  "aris- 


66   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT  PEACE 

tocracy"  for  we  have  the  thing  even  now,  only  in  its 
worst  possible  form.  The  word  itself  means  two 
things :  a  government  by  the  best  and  most  able  cit- 
izens and,  to  quote  a  standard  dictionary  "Persons 
noted  for  superiority  in  any  character  or  quality, 
taken  collectively."  There  is  no  harm  here,  but  the 
harm  comes,  and  the  odium  also,  and  justly,  when 
an  artistocratic  government  degenerates  into  an  olig- 
archy of  privilege  without  responsibility,  and  when 
socially  it  is  not  "superiority  in  character  or  quality" 
but  political  cunning,  opulence  and  sycophancy  that 
are  the  touchstones  to  recognition  and  acceptance. 
The  latter  are  the  antithesis  of  Christianity  and 
common  sense,  the  former  is  consonant  with  both 
and,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  it  is  also  the  ful- 
filling of  the  ideals  of  a  real  democracy,  since  its 
honours  and  distinctions  imply  service,  its  relations 
with  those  in  other  estates  are  reciprocal,  it  is  not  a 
closed  caste  but  the  prize  of  meritorious  achieve- 
ment, and  it  is  therefore  equality  of  opportunity, 
utilization  of  ability  and  the  abolition  of  privilege 
without  responsibility. 

Men  are  forever  and  gloriously  struggling  on- 
ward towards  better  things,  but  there  is  always  the 
gravitational  pull  of  original  sin  which  scientists 
denominate  "reversion  to  type."  The  saving  grace 
in  the  individual  is  the  divine  gift  of  faith,  hope 
and  charity  implanted  in  every  soul.  These  every 
man  must  guard  and  cherish  for  they  are  the  way 
of  advancement  in  character.  But  society  is  man 
in  association  with  men,  in  a  sense  a  new  and  com- 
plex personality,  and  the  same  qualities  are  as  nee- 


THE     SOCIAL     ORGANISM  67 

essary  here  as  in  the  individual.  Society,  like  man, 
may  be  said  to  possess  body,  soul  and  spirit,  and  it 
must  function  vitally  along  all  these  lines  if  it  is  to 
maintain  a  normal  and  wholesome  existence.  Some- 
where there  must  be  something  that  achieves  high 
ideals  of  honour,  chivalry,  courtesy;  that  maintains 
right  standards  of  comparative  value,  and  that 
guards  the  social  organism  as  a  whole  from  the  dan- 
ger of  surrender  to  false  and  debased  standards, 
to  plausible  demagogues,  and  to  mob-psychology. 
The  greater  the  prevalence  of  democratic  methods, 
the  greater  is  the  danger  of  this  surrender  to  prop- 
aganda of  a  thousand  sorts  and  to  the  dominance 
of  the  demagogue,  and  the  existence  of  an  estate 
fortified  by  the  inheritance  of  high  tradition,  meas- 
urably free  from  the  necessity  of  engaging  too 
strenuously  in  the  "struggle  for  life,"  guaranteed 
security  of  status  so  long  as  it  does  not  betray  the 
ideals  of  its  order,  but  open  to  accessions  from  other 
estates  on  the  basis  of  conspicuous  merit  alone,  such 
a  force  operating  in  society  has  proved,  and  will 
prove,  the  best  guardian  of  civilization  as  a  whole 
and  of  the  interests  and  liberties  of  those  who  may 
rank  in  what  are  known  as  lower  social  scales. 

But,  it  may  be  objected,  such  an  institution  as  this 
has  never  existed.  Every  political  or  social  aris- 
tocracy in  history  has  been  mixed  and  adulterated 
with  bad  characters  and  recreant  representatives. 
There  never  has  been  and  never  will  be  a  perfect 
aristocracy.  Quite  true;  neither  has  there  ever1 
been  a  perfect  democracy,  or  a  perfect  monarchy 
for  that  matter.  As  men  we  work  with  imper- 


68       TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

fections,  but  we  live  by  faith,  and  our  sole  duty  is 
to  establish  the  highest  ideals,  and  to  compass  them, 
in  so  far  as  we  may,  with  unfailing  courage,  patience 
and  steadfastness.  The  ideal  of  democracy  is  a 
great  ideal,  but  the  working  of  democracy  has  been 
a  failure  because,  amongst  other  things,  it  has  tried 
to  carry  on  without  the  aid  of  true  aristocracy.  If 
the  two  can  be  united,  first  in  ideal  and  in  theory, 
then  in  operation,  our  present  failure  may  be 
changed  into  victory. 

What,  after  all,  does  this  imply,  so  far  as  the 
social  organism  is  concerned?  It  seems  to  me, 
something  like  this.  First  of  all,  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  there  are  differences  in  individuals,  in 
strains  of  blood,  in  races,  that  cannot  be  overcome 
by  any  power  of  education  and  environment,  and 
can  only  be  changed  through  very  long  periods  of 
time,  and  that  these  differences  must  work  corres- 
ponding differences  in  position,  function  and  status 
in  the  social  organism.  Second,  that  since  society 
automatically  develops  an  aristocracy  of  some  sort 
or  other,  and  apparently  cannot  be  stopped  from 
doing  this,  it  must  be  protected  from  the  sort  of 
thing  it  has  produced  of  late,  which  is  based  on 
money,  political  expediency  and  the  unscrupulous 
cleverness  of  the  demagogue,  and  given  a  more  ra- 
tional substitute  in  the  shape  of  a  permanent  group 
representing  high  character  and  the  traditions  of 
honour,  chivalry  and  courtesy.  Third,  that  char- 
acter and  service  should  be  fostered  and  rewarded 
by  that  formal  and  august  recognition,  that  secure 
and  unquestioned  status,  and  those  added  opportun- 


THE     SOCIAL     ORGANISM  69 

ites  for  service  that  will  form  a  real  and  significant 
distinction.  Finally,  that  this  order  or  estate  must 
be  able  to  purge  itself  of  unworthy  material,  and 
also  must  be  freely  open  to  constant  accessions  from 
without,  whatever  the  source,  and  for  proved  char- 
acter and  service. 

I  fear  I  must  argue  this  case  of  the  inequality  in 
individual  potential,  that  inequality  that  does  not 
yield  to  complex  education  or  favourable  environ- 
ment, for  it  is  fundamental.  If  it  does  not  exist, 
then  my  argument  for  the  organization  of  society 
along  lines  that  recognize  and  regularize  diversity 
of  social  status  and  functions,  falls  to  the  ground. 
I  affirm  that,  the  doctrine  of  evolution  and  modern 
democratic  theory  to  the  contrary,  it  does  exist  and 
that  the  mitigating  influence  of  education,  environ- 
ment and  inherited  acquired  characters,  is  small  at 
best. 

Let  us  take  the  most  obvious  concrete  examples. 
There  are  certain  ethnic  units  or  races  which  for 
periods  ranging  from  five  hundred  to  two  thousand 
years  have  produced  character,  and  through  char- 
acter the  great  contributions  that  have  been  made 
to  human  culture  and  have  been  expressed  through 
men  of  distinction,  dynamic  force,  and  vivid  per- 
sonality. Such,  amongst  many,  are  the  Greeks,  the 
Jews,  the  Romans,  the  Normans,  the  Franks,  the 
"Anglo-Saxons,"  and  the  Celts.  There  are  others 
that  in  all  history  have  produced  nothing.  There  are 
certain  family  names  which  are  a  guarantee  of  dis- 
tinction, dynamic  force,  and  vivid  personality.  There 
are  thousands  of  these  names,  and  they  are  to  be 


70      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

found  amongst  all  the  races  that  have  contributed 
towards  the  development  of  culture  and  civilization. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  are  far  more  that  have  pro- 
duced nothing  distinctive,  and  possibly  never  will. 

What  is  the  reason  for  this?  Is  it  the  result  of 
blind  chance,  of  accidents  that  have  left  certain  races 
and  families  isolated  in  stagnant  eddies  from  which 
some  sudden  current  of  a,  whimsical  tide  might 
sweep  them  out  into  the  full  flood  of  progress,  until 
they  then  overtook  and  passed  their  hitherto  suc- 
cessful rivals,  who,  in  their  turn,  would  drift  off  into 
progressive  incompetence  and  degeneracy?  Biology 
does  not  look  with  enthusiasm  on  the  methods  of 
chance  and  accident.  The  choice  and  transmission 
of  the  forty-eight  chromosomes  that  give  to  each 
individual  his  character-potential  are  probably  in  ac- 
cordance with  some  obscure  biological  law  through 
which  the  unfathomable  divine  will  operates.  Now 
these  chromosomes  may  be  selected  and  combined 
after  a  fashion,  and  with  a  persistence  of  continuity, 
that  would  guarantee  character-potential,  for  good 
or  for  ill,  through  many  generations,  or  they  might 
be  so  varied  in  their  combinations  that  no  distinct 
traits  would  be  carried  over  from  one  generation 
to  another.  As  a  matter  of  experience  all  these 
three  processes  take  place  and  are  recorded  in  fam- 
ilies of  distinct  quality,  good,  bad  and  indifferent. 
If  the  character-potential  is  predetermined,  then 
manifestly  education  and  environment  can  play  only 
the  subordinate  part  of  fostering  its  development 
or  retarding  it. 

In  the  same  way  the  character  and  career  of  the 


THE    SOCIAL    ORGANISM  71 

various  races  of  men  are  determined  by  the  potential 
inherent  in  the  individuals  and  families  that  com- 
pose them,  and  like  them  the  races  themselves  are 
for  long  periods  marked  by  power  and  capacity  or 
weakness  and  lack  of  distinction.  There  are  cer- 
tain races,  such  as  the  Hottentot,  the  Malay,  the 
American  Indian,  and  mixed  bloods,  as  the  Mexican 
peons  and  Mongol-Slavs  of  a  portion  of  the  south- 
eastern Europe,  that,  so  far  as  recorded  history  is 
concerned,  are  either  static  or  retrogressive.  There 
are  family  units,  poverty-stricken  and  incompetent, 
in  Naples,  Canton,  East  Side  New  York;  or  opulent 
and  aggressive  in  West  Side  New  York,  in  Birming- 
ham, Westphalia,  Pittsburgh,  that  are  no  more  sub- 
ject to  the  cultural  and  character-creating  influences 
of  education  and  environment — beyond  a  certain 
definite  point — than  are  the  amphibians  of  Africa 
or  the  rampant  weeds  of  my  garden. 

This  is  a  hard  saying  and  a  provocative.  The  en- 
tire course  of  democratic  theory,  of  humanitarian 
thought  and  of  the  popular  type  of  scientific  specu- 
lation stands  against  it,  and  the  Christian  religion 
as  well,  unless  the  statement  itself  is  guarded  by 
exact  definitions.  If  the  contention  of  the  scientific 
materialist  were  correct,  and  the  thing  that  makes 
man,  and  that  Christians  call  the  immortal  soul, 
were  but  the  result  of  physical  processes  of  growth 
and  differentiation,  then  slavery  would  be  justifiable, 
and  exploitation  a  reasonable  and  inevitable  proc- 
ess. Since,  however,  this  assumption  of  material- 
ism is  untenable,  and  since  all  men  are  possessed  of 
immortal  souls  between  which  is  no  distinction  in  the 


72       TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

sight  of  God,  the  situation,  regrettable  if  you  like, 
is  one  which  at  the  same  time  calls  for  the  exercise 
of  a  higher  humanitarianism  than  that  so  popular 
during  the  last  generation,  and  as  well  for  a  very 
drastic  revision  of  contemporary  political  and  social 
and  educational  methods. 

The  soul  of  the  man  is  the  localization  of  divinity; 
in  a  sense  each  man  is  a  manifestation  of  the  In- 
carnation. Black  or  white,  conspicuous  or  obscure, 
intelligent  or  stupid,  offspring  of  a  creative  race  or 
bound  by  the  limitations  of  one  that  is  static  or  in 
process  of  decay,  there  is  no  difference  in  the  uni- 
versal claim  to  justice,  charity,  and  opportunity. 
The  soul  of  a  Cantonese  river-man,  of  a  Congo 
slave,  of  an  East  Side  Jew,  is  in  itself  as  essentially 
precious  and  worth  saving  as  the  soul  of  a  bishop, 
of  a  descendant  of  a  Norman  viking  or  an  Irish  king, 
or  that  of  a  volunteer  soldier  in  the  late  armies  of 
France  or  Great  Britain  or  the  United  States. 

Here  lies  absolute  and  final  equality,  and  the 
State,  the  Law,  the  Church  are  bound  to  guard  this 
equality  in  the  one  case  and  the  other  with  equal 
force;  indeed,  those  of  the  lower  racial  and  family 
types  claim  even  more  faithful  guardianship  than 
those  of  the  higher,  for  they  can  accomplish  less  for 
themselves  and  by  themselves.  But  the  fundamental 
and  inescapable  inequality,  in  intellect,  in  character, 
and  in  capacity,  which  I  insist  is  one  of  the  condi- 
tioning factors  in  life,  is  vociferously  denied,  but 
ruthlessly  enforced,  by  the  people  that  will  be  the 
first  to  denounce  any  restatement  of  what  is  after 
all  no  more  than  a  patent  fact. 


THE     SOCIAL    ORGANISM  73 

A  little  less  enthusiasm  for  shibboleths,  and  a 
little  more  intelligent  regard  for  history  and  pal- 
pable conditions,  will  show  that  the  assumed  equal- 
ity between  men  "on  the  strength  of  their  man- 
hood alone,"  the  sufficiency  of  education  for  cor- 
recting the  accidental  differences  that  show  them- 
selves, and  the  scheme  of  life  that  is  worked  out 
along  democratic  lines  on  the  basis  of  this  essential 
(or  potential)  equality,  are  "fond  things  vainly 
imagined"  which  must  be  radically  modified  before 
the  world  can  begin  a  sane  and  wholesome  building- 
up  after  the  great  purgation  of  war. 

That  equality  between  men  which  exists  by  virtue 
of  the  presence  in  each  of  an  immortal  soul,  involves 
an  even  distribution  of  justice  and  the  protection  of 
law,  without  distinction  of  persons,  and  an  even 
measure  of  charity  and  compassion,  but  it  does  not 
involve  the  admission  of  a  claim  to  equality  of 
action  or  the  denial  of  varied  status,  since  race- 
values,  both  of  blood  and  of  the  gens,  enter  in  to 
establish  differences  in  character,  in  intelligence  and 
in  capacity  which  cannot  be  changed  by  education, 
environment  or  heredity  within  periods  which  are 
practical  considerations  with  society.  If  we  could 
still  hold  the  old  Darwinian  dogmas  of  the  origin 
of  species  through  the  struggle  for  existence  and  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  and  if  the  equally  august  and 
authoritative  dogma  of  the  transmission  by  inheri- 
tance of  acquired  characteristics  were  longer  ten- 
able, then  perhaps  we  might  invoke  faith,  hope  and 
patience  and  continue  our  generous  method  of  im- 
perilling present  society  while  we  fixed  our  eyes  on 


74      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

the  vision  of  that  to  come  when  environment,  edu- 
cation and  heredity  had  accomplished  their  perfect 
work.  Unfortunately — or  perhaps  fortunately — 
science  is  rapidly  reconsidering  its  earlier  and  some- 
what hasty  conclusions,  and  the  consensus  of  the 
most  authoritative  opinion  seems  to  be  that  we  must 
believe  these  things  no  longer.  Failing  these  prem- 
ises, on  which  we  have  laboured  so  long  and  so  hon- 
estly and  so  sincerely,  we  are  again  thrown  back 
on  the  testimony  of  history  and  our  own  observation, 
and  with  this  reversal  we  also  are  bound  to  recon- 
sider both  our  premises  and  the  constitution  of  those 
systems  and  institutions  we  have  erected  on  them  as 
a  foundation. 

The  existence  of  a  general  law  does  not  exclude 
exceptions.  The  fact  that  in  the  case  of  human  beings 
we  have  to  take  into  consideration  a  powerful  factor 
that  does  not  come  into  play  in  the  domain  of 
zoology  and  botany — the  immortal  soul — makes  im- 
possible the  drawing  of  exact  deductions  from  prece- 
dents therein  established.  This  determining  touch 
of  the  divine,  which  is  no  result  of  biological  proc- 
esses, but  stands  outside  the  limitations  of  heredity 
and  environment  and  education,  may  manifest  itself 
quite  as  well  in  one  class  as  in  another,  for  "God  is 
no  respecter  of  persons."  As  has  been  said  before, 
there  is  no  difference  in  degree  as  between  immortal 
souls.  The  point  is,  however,  that  each  is  linked  to 
a  specific  congeries  of  tendencies,  limitations,  effec- 
tive or  defective  agencies,  that  are  what  they  have 
been  made  by  the  parents  of  the  race.  These  may 
be  such  as  enable  the  soul  to  triumph  in  its  earthly 


THE     SOCIAL     ORGANISM  75 

experience  and  in  its  bodily  housing;  they  may  be 
such  as  will  bring  about  failure  and  defeat.  It  is 
not  that  the  soul  builds  itself  "more  stately  man- 
sions" ;  it  is  that  these  are  provided  for  it  by  the 
physical  processes  of  life,  and  it  is  almost  the  first 
duty  of  man  to  see  that  they  are  well  built. 

Again,  the  soul  is  single  and  personal;  as  it  is 
not  a  plexus  of  inherited  tendencies,  so  it  is  not 
heritable,  and  a  great  soul  showing  suddenly  in  the 
dusk  of  a  dull  race  contributes  nothing  of  its  essen- 
tial quality  to  the  issue  of  the  body  it  has  made  its 
house.  The  stews  of  a  mill  town  may  suddenly  be 
illuminated  by  the  radiance  of  a  divine  soul,  to  the 
amazement  of  profligate  parents  and  the  confusion 
of  eugenists;  but  unless  the  unsolvable  mystery  of 
life  has  determined  on  a  new  species,  and  so  by  a 
sudden  influx  of  the  elan  vital  cuts  off  the  line  of 
physical  succession  and  establishes  one  that  is  wholly 
new,  then  the  brightness  dies  away  with  the  passing 
of  the  splendid  soul,  and  the  established  tendencies 
resume  their  sway. 

The  bearing  of  this  theory  on  the  actions  of 
society  is  immediate.  Through  the  complete  disre- 
gard of  race-values  that  has  obtained  during  the  last 
two  or  three  centuries,  and  the  emergence  and  com- 
plete supremacy  in  all  categories  of  life  of  human 
groups  of  low  potential,  civilization  has  been 
brought  down  to  a  level  where  it  is  threatened  with 
disaster.  If  recovery  is  to  be  effected  and  a  second 
era  of  "dark  ages"  avoided,  there  must  be  an 
entirely  new  evaluation  of  things,  a  new  estimate  of 
the  principles  and  methods  that  obtained  under 


76      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

Modernism,  and  a  fearless  adventure  into  fields 
that  may  prove  not  to  be  so  unfamiliar  as  might  at 
first  appear. 

Specifically,  we  must  revise  our  attitude  as  to  im- 
migration, excluding  whole  classes,  and  even  races, 
that  we  have  hitherto  welcomed  with  open  hands 
from  the  disinterested  offices  of  steamship  com- 
panies :  we  must  control  and  in  some  cases  prohibit, 
the  mating  of  various  racial  stocks;  finally  we  must 
altogether  disallow  the  practice  of  changing,  by  law, 
one  race-name  for  another.  This  process  is  one 
for  which  no  excuse  exists  and  unless  it  can  be 
brought  to  an  end  then,  apart  from  certain  physical 
differentiations  on  which  nature  wisely  insists,  we 
have  no  guaranty  against  the  adulteration  that  has 
gone  so  far  towards  substituting  the  mongrel  for 
the  pure  racial  type,  while  society  is  bound  to  suffer 
still  further  deception  and  continued  danger  along 
the  lines  that  have  recently  been  indicated  by  the 
transformation  of  Treibitsch  into  "Lincoln,"  Braun- 
stein  into  "Trotsky"  and  Samuels  into  "Montague." 

For  its  fulfillment,  then,  and  its  regeneration,  the 
real  democracy  demands  and  must  achieve  the  crea- 
tion and  cooperation  of  a  real  aristocracy,  not  an 
aristocracy  of  material  force  either  military  or  civil, 
nor  one  of  land  owners  or  money-getters,  nor  one 
of  artificial  caste.  All  these  substitutes  have  been 
tried  from  time  to  time,  in  Rome,  China,  Great 
Britain,  the  United  States,  and  all  have  failed  in  the 
end,  for  all  have  ignored  the  one  essential  point  of 
character,  without  which  we  shall  continue  to  re- 
produce what  we  have  at  present;  a  thing  as  inso- 


THE     SOCIAL    ORGANISM  77 

lent,  offensive  and  tyrannical  as  the  old  aristocra- 
cies at  their  worst,  with  none  of  the  constructive  and 
beneficent  qualities  of  the  old  aristocracies  at  their 
best. 

That  race-values  have  much  to  do  with  this  devel- 
opment of  character  I  believe  to  be  true,  but  of  far 
greater  efficiency,  indeed  the  actual  motive  force,  is 
the  Christian  religion,  working  directly  on  and 
through  the  individual  and  using  race  as  only  one 
of  its  material  means  of  operation.  Democracy  has 
accomplished  its  present  failure,  not  only  because  it 
could  not  function  without  the  cooperation  of  aris- 
tocracy, but  chiefly  because,  in  its  modernist  form,  it 
has  become  in  fact  isolated  from  Christianity.  All 
in  it  of  good  it  derives  from  that  Catholic  Christi- 
anity of  the  Middle  Ages  which  first  put  it  into  prac- 
tice, all  in  it  of  evil  it  owes  to  a  falling  back  on 
paganism  and  a  denial  of  its  own  parentage  and  re- 
jection of  its  control.  I  shall  deal  with  this  later  in 
more  detail;  I  speak  of  it  now  just  for  the  purpose 
of  entering  a  caveat  against  any  deduction  from 
what  I  have  said  that  any  natural  force,  of  race  or 
evolution  or  anything  else,  or  any  formal  institu- 
tion devised  by  man,  ever  has,  or  ever  can,  serve  in 
itself  as  a  way  of  social  redemption.  I  am  anxious 
not  to  overemphasize  these  things  on  which  the 
development  of  my  argument  forces  me  to  lay  par- 
ticular stress. 

For  those  who  can  go  with  me  so  far,  the  ques- 
tion will  arise :  How  then  are  we  so  to  reorganize 
society  that  we  may  gain  the  end  in  view?  It  is  a 
question  not  easy  of  solution.  Granted  the  fact  of 


78      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

social  differentiation  and  the  necessity  of  its  recog- 
nition, how  are  we  to  break  down  the  wholly  wrong 
system  that  now  obtains  and  substitute  another  in 
its  place?  It  would  be  simple  enough  if  within  the 
period  allowed  us  by  safety  (apparently  not  any  too 
extended  at  the  present  moment)  a  working  ma- 
jority of  men  could  achieve,  in  the  old  and  exact 
phraseology,  that  change  of  heart,  that  spiritual 
conversion,  that  would  bring  back  into  permanent 
authority  the  supernatural  virtues  of  faith,  hope,  and 
charity,  and  that  sense  of  right  values  in  life,  which 
together  make  almost  indifferent  the  nature  of  the 
formal  devices  man  creates  for  the  organization  of 
society.  Certainly  this  is  possible ;  greater  miracles 
have  happened  in  history  but,  failing  this,  what? 

One  turns  of  course  by  instinct  to  old  models, 
but  in  this  is  the  danger  of  an  attempt  at  an  archaeo- 
logical restoration,  a  futile  effort  at  reviving  dead 
forms  that  have  had  their  day.  In  principle,  and  in 
the  working  as  well,  the  old  orders  of  chivalry  or 
knighthood  strongly  commend  themselves,  for  here 
there  was,  in  principle,  both  the  maintenance  of 
high  ideals  of  honour  courtesy  and  noblesse  oblige, 
and  the  rendering  of  chivalrous  service.  Chester- 
ton has  put  it  well  in  the  phrase  "the  giving  things 
which  cannot  be  demanded,  the  avoiding;  thing's 
which  cannot  be  punished."  Moreover,  admission 
to  the  orders  of  knighthood  was  free  to  all  pro- 
vided there  were  that  cause  which  came  from  per- 
sonal character  alone.  Knighthood  was  the  crown 
of  knightly  service  and  it  was  forfeited  for  recre- 
ancy. Is  there  not  in  this  some  suggestion  of  what 


THE    SOCIAL    ORGANISM  79 

may  again  be  established  as  an  incentive  and  a  re- 
ward, and  as  well,  as  a  vital  agency  for  the  reorgan- 
ization of  society? 

Knighthood  is  personal,  and  is  for  the  lifetime 
of  the  recipient.  Is  there  any  value  in  an  estate 
where  status  is  heritable?  If  there  is  any  validity 
in  the  theory  of  varying  and  persistent  race-values, 
it  would  seem  so,  yet  the  idea  of  recongnizing  this 
excellence  of  certain  families  and  the  reasonable  prob- 
ability of  their  maintaining  the  established  standard 
unimpared,  and  so  giving  them  a  formal  status, 
would  no  doubt  be  repugnant  to  the  vast  majority 
of  men  in  the  United  States.  I  think  this  aversion 
is  based  on  prejudice,  natural  but  ill-founded.  We 
resent  the  idea  of  privilege  without  responsibility, 
as  we  should,  but  this,  while  it  was  the  condition 
of  those  aristocracies  which  were  operative  at  the 
time  of  the  founding  of  the  Republic,  was  opposed 
to  the  Mediaeval,  or  true  idea,  which  linked  re- 
sponsibility with  privilege.  The  old  privilege  is 
gone  and  cannot  be  restored,  but  already  we  have  a 
new  privilege  which  is  being  claimed  and  enforced 
by  proletarian  groups,  and  the  legislative  repre- 
sentatives of  the  whole  people  stand  in  such  terror 
of  massed  votes  that  they  not  only  fail  to  check 
this  astonishing  and  topsy-turvy  movement,  but  ac- 
tually further  its  pretensions.  The  "dictatorship  of 
the  proletariat"  actually  means  the  restoration  of 
privilege  in  a  form  far  more  tyrannical  and  mon- 
strous than  any  ever  exercised  by  the  old  aristocra- 
cies of  Italy,  France,  Germany  and  England.  Much 
recent  legislation  in  Washington  exempting  certain 


8O      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

industrial  and  agricultural  classes  from  the  operation 
of  laws  which  bear  heavily  on  other  classes,  and 
some  of  the  claims  and  pretensions  of  unionized 
labor,  tend  in  precisely  the  same  direction. 

It  is  not  restoration  of  privilege  I  have  in  mind 
but  rather  in  a  sense  the  prevention  of  this  through 
the  existence  of  a  class  or  estate  that  has  a  fixed 
status  dependent  first  on  character  and  service  and 
then  on  an  assured  position  that  is  not  contingent  on 
political  favour,  the  bulk  of  votes,  or  the  acquisition 
of  an  inordinate  amount  of  money.  Surety  of  posi- 
tion works  towards  independence  of  thought  and 
action  and  towards  strong  leadership.  It  establishes 
and  maintains  certain  high  ideals  of  honour,  chivalry, 
and  service  as  well  as  of  courtesy  and  manners.  If 
the  things  for  which  the  gentlemen,  the  knighthood 
and  the  nobility  of  Europe  during  the  Christian  dis- 
pensation were  responsible  were  stricken  from  the 
record  there  would  be  comparatively  little  left  of 
the  history  of  European  culture  and  civilization. 

After  all,  is  it  merely  sentimentalism  and  a 
sense  of  the  picturesque  that  leads  us  to 
look  backward  with  some  wistfulness  to  the  days 
of  which  the  record  is  still  left  us  in  legends  and 
fairy-tales  and  old  romance,  when  ignorance  and 
vulgarity  did  not  sit  in  high  places  even  if  arrogance 
and  pride  and  tyranny  sometimes  did,  and  when  the 
profiteer  and  the  oriental  financier  and  the  successful 
politician  did  not  represent  the  distinction  and  the 
chivalry  and  the  courtesy  and  the  honour  of  the  social 
organism  man  builds  for  his  own  habitation?  The 
idea  of  knighthood  still  stirs  us  and  the  deeds  of 


THE    SOCIAL    ORGANISM  8l 

chivalry  and  the  courtesy  and  the  honour  of  the  social 
Knights  of  the  Round  Table,  Crusaders  and  knights 
errant,  the  quest  of  the  Holy  Grail,  rescue  and  ad- 
venture, the  fighting  with  paynims  and  powers  of 
evil,  still  stir  our  blood  and  arouse  in  our  minds 
strange  contrasts  and  antinomies.  Princes  and  fair 
chatelaines  in  their  wide  domains  with  castle  and 
chase  and  delicate  pleasaunce,  liege-men  bound  to 
them  by  more  than  the  feudal  ties  of  service.  All 
the  varied  honours  of  nobility,  vitalized  by  significant 
ritual  and  symbolized  by  splendid  and  beautiful  cos- 
tumes. Courts  of  Love  and  troubadours  and  trou- 
veres,  kings  who  were  kings  indeed,  with  the  splen- 
dour and  courtesy  and  beneficence  of  their  courts — 
Louis  the  Saint  and  Frederic  II,  Edward  III  and 
King  Charles — above  all  the  simple  rank  and  high 
honour  of  the  "gentleman,"  the  representative  of  a 
long  line  of  honourable  tradition,  no  casual  and 
purse-proud  upstart,  but  of  proud  race  and  unques- 
tioned status,  proud  because  it  stood  for  certain  high 
ideals  of  honour  and  chivalry  and  loyalty,  of  courtesy 
and  breeding  and  compassion.  All  these  old  things 
of  long  ago  still  rouse  in  us  answering  humours,  and 
there  are  a  few  of  us  who  can  hardly  see  just  why 
they  are  inconsistent  with  liberty  and  opportunity, 
justice,  righteousness  and  mercy. 

Somehow  the  last  two  generations,  and  especially 
the  last  ten  years,  have  revealed  many  things  hith- 
erto hidden,  and  as  we  envisage  society  as  it  has 
come  to  be,  estimating  it  by  new-found  standards 
and  establishing  new  comparisons  through  a  recov- 
ery of  a  more  just  historical  sense,  the  question 


82      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

comes  whether  it  is  indeed  more  wholesome,  more 
beautiful,  more  normal  to  man  as  he  is,  than  the 
older  society  that  in  varying  forms  but  always  the 
same  principle,  had  held  throughout  all  history  until 
the  new  model  came  in,  now  hardly  a  century  ago. 
I  do  not  think,  this  wistful  and  bewildered  look- 
ing backward  is  particularly  due  to  a  new  desire  for 
beauty,  that  comeliness  of  condition  that  existed 
then  and  has  now  given  place  to  gross  ugliness  and 
ill-conditioned  manners  and  ways.  Rather  it  seems 
to  me  it  is  due  to  a  sense  of  irrationality  and  funda- 
mental injustice  in  the  present  order,  coupled  with 
a  new  terror  of  the  proximate  issue  as  this  already 
is  revealing  itself  amongst  many  peoples.  We  re- 
sent the  high  estate,  purchasable  and  purchased,  of 
the  cynical  intriguer  and  the  vulgar  profiteer,  of  the 
tradesman  in  "big  business,"  the  cheap  prophet  and 
the  pathetic  progeny  of  "successful  men"  fast  re- 
verting to  type.  We  know  our  city  councils  and 
our  state  legislatures  and  our  houses  of  congress, 
we  know  our  newspapers,  their  standards  and  the 
motive  powers  behind  them,  and  what  they  record 
of  the  character  and  the  doings  of  what  they  call 
"society  men  and  women."  Above  all  we  know 
that  under  the  ancient  regime,  in  spite  of  manifold 
failures,  shortcomings  and  disloyalty,  there  was 
such  a  thing  as  a  standard  of  honour,  a  principle  of 
chivalry,  an  impulse  to  unselfish  service,  a  criterion 
of  courtesy  and  good  manners;  we  look  for  these 
things  now  in  vain,  except  amongst  those  little  en- 
claves of  oblivion  where  the  old  character  and  old 
breeding  still  maintain  a  fading  existence,  and  as 


THE     SOCIAL    ORGANISM  83 

we  consider  what  we  have  become  we  sometimes 
wonder  if  the  price  we  have  paid  for  "democracy" 
was  not  too  extortionate. 

Above  all,  we  are  tempted  to  this  query  when  we 
think  of  our  vanishing  standards  of  right  and  wrong, 
of  our  progressive  reversal  of  values,  of  our  dimin- 
ishing stock  of  social  character.  We  tore  down  in 
indignant  revolt  the  rotten  fabric  of  a  bad  social 
system  when  it  had  so  far  declined  from  its  ideal 
and  its  former  estate  that  it  could  no  longer  be 
endured,  and  we  made  a  new  thing,  full  as  we  were 
with  the  fire  of  desire  for  a  new  righteousness  and  a 
new  system  that  would  compass  it.  Perhaps  we 
did  well,  at  least  we  hardly  could  have  done  any- 
thing else;  but  now  we  are  again  in  the  position  of 
our  forefathers  who  saw  things  as  they  were  and 
acted  with  force  and  decision.  There  are  as  many 
counts  against  our  society  of  plutocrats,  politicians 
and  proletarians,  mingled  in  complete  and  ineffective 
confusion,  as  there  were  against  the  aristocracies, 
so  called,  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Perhaps  there 
are  more,  at  least  many  of  them  are  different,  but 
the  indictment  is  no  less  sweeping. 

Our  plan,  so  generous,  so  liberal,  so  high-minded 
in  many  ways,  has  failed  to  produce  the  results  we 
desired,  while  it  has  worked  itself  out  to  the  point 
of  menace.  It  is  for  us  to  see  these  facts  clearly, 
and  so  to  act,  and  so  promptly,  that  we  may  not  have 
to  await  the  destroying  force  of  cataclysm  for  the 
correction  of  our  errors. 


IV 
THE  INDUSTRIAL  PROBLEM 

solution  of  the  industrial  and  economic 
problem  that  now  confronts  the  entire  world 
with  an  insistence  that  is  not  to  be  denied,  is  con- 
tingent on  the  restoration,  first  of  all,  of  the  holi- 
ness and  the  joy  of  work.  Labour  is  not  a  curse,  it 
is  rather  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  earthly  blessings 
of  man,  provided  its  sanctity  is  recognized  and  its 
performance  is  accomplished  with  satisfaction  to 
the  labourer.  In  work  man  creates,  whether  the 
product  is  a  bushel  of  potatoes  from  a  space  of 
once  arid  ground,  or  whether  it  is  the  Taj  Mahal, 
Westminster  Abbey  or  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  and  so  working  he  partakes  something 
of  the  divine  power  of  creation. 

When  work  is  subject  to  slavery,  all  sense  of 
its  holiness  is  lost,  both  by  master  and  bondman; 
when  it  is  subject  to  the  factory  system  all  the  joy 
in  labour  is  lost.  Ingenuity  may  devise  one  clever 
panacea  after  another  for  the  salving  work  and  for 
lifting  the  working  classes  from  the  intolerable  con- 
ditions that  have  prevailed  for  more  than  a  cen- 
tury; they  will  be  ephemeral  in  their  existence  and 
futile  in  their  results  unless  sense  of  holiness  is  re- 
stored, and  the  joy  in  production  and  creation  given 
back  to  those  who  have  been  defrauded. 

Before   Christianity  prevailed   slavery  was  um- 

84 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM  85 

versal  in  civilized  communities,  labour,  as  conducted 
under  that  regime,  was  a  curse,  and  this  at  length 
came  home  to  roost  on  the  gaunt  wreckage  of  im- 
perialism. Thereafter  came  slowly  increasing  lib- 
erty under  the  feudal  system  with  its  small  social 
units  and  its  system  of  production  for  use  not 
profits,  monasticism  with  its  doctrine  and  practice 
of  the  sanctity  of  work,  and  the  Church  with  its 
progressive  emancipation  of  the  spiritual  part  of 
man.  Work  was  not  easy,  on  the  contrary  it  was 
very  hard  throughout  the  Dark  Ages  and  Mediae- 
valism,  but  there  is  no  particular  merit  in  easy  work. 
It  was  virtually  free  except  for  the  labour  and  con- 
tributions in  kind  exacted  by  the  over-lord  (less  in 
proportion  than  taxes  in  money  have  been  at  several 
times  since)  from  the  workers  on  the  soil,  and  in 
the  crafts  of  every  kind  redeemed  from  undue  ardu- 
ousness  by  the  joy  that  comes  from  doing  a  thing 
well  and  producing  something  of  beauty,  originality 
and  technical  perfection. 

The  period  during  which  work  possessed  the  most 
honourable  status  and  the  joy  in  work  was  the  great- 
est, extends  from  the  beginnings  of  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury well  into  the  sixteenth.  In  some  centuries,  and 
along  certain  lines  of  activity,  it  continued  much 
longer,  notably  in  England  and  the  United  States,  but 
social  and  industrial  conditions  were  rapidly  chang- 
ing, the  old  aristocracy  was  becoming  perverted, 
Lutheranisms,  Calvinism  and  Puritanism  were  break- 
ing down  the  old  communal  sense  of  brotherhood  so 
arduously  built  up  during  the  Middle  Ages,  capital- 
ism was  ousting  the  trade  and  craft  guilds  of  free  la- 


86      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

hour  and  political  absolutism  was  crushing  ever  lower 
and  lower  a  proletariat  that  was  fast  losing  the  last 
vestiges  of  old  liberty.  The  fact  of  slavery  without 
the  name  was  gradually  imposed  on  the  agricultural 
classes,  and  after  the  suppression  of  the  monasteries 
in  England  work  as  work  lost  its  sacred  character 
and  fell  under  contempt.  With  the  outbreak  of 
industrialism  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighteenth 
century  through  the  institution  and  introduction  of 
"labour-saving"  machinery  and  the  consequent  divi- 
sion of  labour,  the  factory  system,  the  joint-stock 
company  and  capitalism,  this  new  slavery  was  ex- 
tended to  industrial  workers,  and  with  its  establish- 
ment disappeared  the  element  of  joy  in  labour. 

For  fifty  years,  about  the  blackest  half-century 
civilization  has  had  to  record,  this  condition  of  in- 
dustrial slavery  continued  with  little  amendment. 
Very  slowly,  however,  the  workers  themselves, 
championed  by  certain  aristocrats  like  the  seventh 
Earl  of  Shaftsbury  against  professional  Liberals 
like  Cobden,  Bright,  and  Gladstone  in  England,  be- 
gan to  looosen  the  shackles  that  bound  them  to  in- 
famous conditions,  and  after  the  abrogation  of  laws 
that  made  any  association  of  workingmen  a  penal 
offense,  the  labour  unions  began  to  ameliorate  certain 
of  the  servile  conditions  under  which  for  two  gen- 
erations the  workman  had  suffered.  Since  then  the 
process  of  abolishing  wage-slavery  went  slowly 
forward  until  at  last  the  war  came  not  only  to 
threaten  its  destruction  altogether  but  also  to  place 
the  emancipated  workers  in  a  position  where  they 
could  dictate  terms  and  conditions  to  capital,  to  em- 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM  87 

ployers,  to  government  and  to  the  general  public; 
while  even  now  in  many  parts  of  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica, besides  Russia,  overt  attempts  are  being  made 
to  bring  back  the  old  slavery,  only  with  the  former 
bondsmen  in  supreme  dictatorship,  the  former  em- 
ployers and  the  "bourgeoisie"  in  the  new  serfage. 
The  old  slavery  is  gone,  but  the  joy  in  work  has 
not  been  restored;  instead,  those  who  have  achieved 
triumphant  emancipation  turn  from  labour  itself  with 
the  same  distaste,  yes,  with  greater  aversion  than 
that  which  obtained  under  the  old  regime.  With 
every  added  liberty  and  exemption,  with  every  short- 
ening of  hours  and  increase  of  pay,  production  per 
hour  falls  off  and  the  quality  of  the  output  declines. 
What  is  the  reason  for  this?  Is  it  due  to  the  vicious- 
ness  of  the  worker,  to  his  natural  selfishness,  greed 
and  cruelty?  I  do  not  think  so,  but  rather  that  the 
explanation  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  indus- 
trial system  of  modernism  has  resulted  in  a  condi- 
tion where  the  joy  has  been  altogether  cut  out  of 
labour,  and  that  until  this  state  of  things  has  been 
reversed  and  the  sense  of  the  holiness  of  work  and 
the  joy  of  working  have  been  restored,  it  is  useless 
to  look  for  workable  solutions  of  the  labour  problem. 
The  fact  of  industrial  slavery  has  been  done  away 
with  but  the  sense  of  the  servile  condition  that  at- 
taches to  work  has  been  retained,  therefore  the  idea 
of  the  dignity  and  holiness  of  labour  has  not  come 
back  any  more  than  the  old  joy  and  satisfaction. 
Failing  this  recovery,  no  reorganization  of  indus- 
trial relations,  neither  profit-sharing  nor  shop  com- 
mittees, neither  nationalization  nor  state  socialism, 


88      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

neither  the  abolition  of  capital,  nor  Soviets  nor  syn- 
dicalism nor  the  dictatorship  of  the  proletariat  will 
get  us  anywhere.  It  is  all  a  waste  of  time,  and, 
through  its  ultimate  failure  and  disappointments,  an 
intensification  of  an  industrial  disease. 

Why  is  it  that  this  is  so?  For  an  answer  I  must 
probe  deep  and,  it  may  seem,  cut  wildly.  I  believe 
it  is  because  we  have  built  up  a  system  that  goes 
far  outside  the  limits  of  human  scale,  transcends 
human  capacity,  is  forbidden  by  the  laws  and  condi- 
tions of  life,  and  must  be  abrogated  if  it  is  not  to 
destroy  itself  and  civilization  in  the  process. 

What,  precisely  has  taken  place?  Late  in  the 
eighteenth  century  two  things  happened;  the  dis- 
covery of  the  potential  inherent  in  coal  and  its  de- 
rivative, steam,  with  electricity  yet  unexploited  but 
ready  to  hand,  and  the  application  of  this  to  indus- 
trial purposes,  together  with  the  initiating  of  a  long 
and  astounding  series  of  discoveries  and  inventions 
all  applicable  to  industrial  purposes.  With  a  sort  of 
vertiginous  rapidity  the  whole  industrial  process  was 
transformed  from  what  it  had  been  during  the 
period  of  recorded  history;  steam  and  machinery 
took  the  place  of  brain  and  hand  power  directly  ap- 
plied, and  a  revolution  greater  than  any  other  was 
effected. 

The  new  devices  were  hailed  as  "labour-saving" 
but  they  vastly  increased  labour  both  in  hours  of 
work  and  in  hands  employed.  Bulk  production 
through  the  factory  system  was  inevitable,  the  re- 
sult being  an  enormous  surplus  over  the  normal  and 
local  demand.  To  organize  and  conduct  these  pro- 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM  89 

cesses  of  bulk-production  required  money  greater 
in  amount  than  individuals  could  furnish;  so  grew 
up  capitalism,  the  joint-stock  company,  credit  and 
cosmopolitan  finance.  To  produce  profits  and  divi- 
dends markets  must  be  found  for  the  huge  surplus 
product.  This  was  accomplished  by  stimulating  the 
covetousness  of  people  for  things  they  had  not 
thought  of,  under  normal  conditions  would  not,  in 
many  cases,  need,  and  very  likely  would  be  happier 
without,  and  in  "dumping"  on  supposedly  barbarous 
peoples  in  remote  parts  of  the  world,  articles  alien 
to  their  traditions  and  their  mode  of  life  and  gen- 
erally pestiferous  in  their  influence  and  results.  So 
came  advertising  in  all  its  branches,  direct  and  in- 
direct, from  the  newspaper  and  the  bill-board  to  the 
drummer,  the  diplomatic  representative  and  the 
commercial  missionary. 

Every  year  saw  some  new  invention  that  in- 
creased the  product  per  man,  the  development  of 
some  new  advertising  device,  the  conquest  of  some 
new  territory  or  the  delimitation  of  some  new 
"sphere  of  influence,"  and  the  revelation  of  some 
new  possibility  in  the  covetousness  of  man.  Profits 
rose  to  new  heights  and  accumulating  dividends 
clamoured  for  new  opportunities  for  investment. 
Competition  tended  to  cut  down  returns,  therefore 
labour  was  more  and  more  sustained  through  dimin- 
ished wages  and  laws  that  savagely  prevented  any 
concerted  effort  towards  self-defense.  Improve- 
ments in  agricultural  processes  and  the  application 
of  machinery  and  steam  power,  together  with  bulk- 
production  and  scientific  localization  of  crops,  threw 


90   TOWARDS  THE  GREAT  PEACE 

great  quantities  of  farm-labourers  out  of  work  and 
drove  them  into  the  industrial  towns,  while  ad- 
vances in  medical  science  and  in  sanitation  raised 
the  proportion  of  births  to  deaths  and  soon  pro- 
vided a  surplus  of  potential  labour  so  that  the  opera- 
tion of  the  "law  of  supply  and  demand,"  extolled 
by  a  new  philosophy  and  enforced  by  the  new  "rep- 
resentative" or  democratic  and  parliamentary  gov- 
ernment, resulted  in  an  unfailing  supply  of  cheap 
labour  paid  wages  just  beyond  the  limit  of  starvation. 

At  last  there  came  evidences  that  the  limit  had 
been  reached;  the  whole  world  had  been  opened  up 
and  pre-empted,  labour  was  beginning  to  demand  and 
even  get  more  adequate  wages,  competition,  once 
hailed  as  "the  life  of  trade"  was  becoming  so  fierce 
that  dividends  were  dwindling.  Something  had  to 
be  done  and  in  self-defense  industries  began  to  coal- 
esce in  enormous  "trusts"  and  "combines"  and  mo- 
nopolies. Capitalization  of  millions  now  ran  into 
billions,  finance  became  international  in  its  scope 
and  gargantuan  in  its  proportions  and  ominousness, 
advertising  grew  from  its  original  simplicity  and 
naivete  into  a  vast  industry  based  on  all  that  the  most 
ingenious  professors  could  tell  of  applied  psychol- 
ogy, subsidizing  artists,  poets,  men  of  letters,  em- 
ploying armies  of  men  along  a  hundred  different 
lines,  expending  millions  annually  in  its  operations, 
making  the  modern  newspaper  possible,  and  ulti- 
mately developing  the  whole  system  of  propaganda 
which  has  now  become  the  one  great  determining 
factor  in  the  making  of  public  opinion. 

When  the  twentieth  century  opened,  that  Indus- 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM  91 

trialism  which  had  begun  just  a  century  before,  had, 
with  its  various  collateral  developments,  financial, 
educational,  journalistic,  etc.,  become  not  only  the 
greatest  force  in  society,  but  as  well  a  thing  operat- 
ing on  the  largest  scale  that  man  had  ever  essayed: 
beside  it  the  Roman  Empire  was  parochial. 

The  result  of  this  institution,  conceived  on  such 
imperial  lines,  was,  in  the  field  we  are  now  consid- 
ering, the  total  destruction  of  the  sense  of  the  holi- 
ness of  labour  and  of  joy  in  work.  It  extended  far 
beyond  the  limits  of  pure  industrialism;  it  moulded 
and  controlled  society  in  all  its  forms,  destroying 
ideals  old  as  history,  reversing  values,  confusing 
issues  and  wrecking  man's  powers  of  judgment. 
Until  the  war  it  seemed  irresistible,  now  its  weak- 
ness and  the  fallacy  of  its  assumptions  are  revealed, 
but  it  has  become  so  absolutely  a  part  of  our  life, 
indeed  of  our  nature,  that  we  are  unable  to  estimate 
it  by  any  sound  standards  of  judgment,  and  even 
when  we  approximate  this  we  cannot  think  in  other 
terms  when  we  try  to  devise  our  schemes  of  re- 
demption. Even  the  socialist  and  the  Bolshevik 
think  in  imperial  terms  when  they  try  to  compass 
the  ending  of  imperialism. 

Under  this  supreme  system,  as  I  see  it,  the  two 
essential  things  I  have  spoken  of  cannot  be  re- 
stored, nor  could  they  maintain  themselves  if,  by 
some  miracle,  they  were  once  re-established.  The 
indictment  cannot  be  closed  here.  The  actual  condi- 
tion that  has  developed  from  industrialism  presents 
certain  factors  that  are  not  consonant  with  sane, 
wholesome  and  Christian  living.  Not  only  has  the 


92      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

unit  of  human  scale  in  human  society  been  done 
away  with,  not  only  have  the  sense  of  the  nobility 
of  work  and  joy  in  the  doing  been  exterminated, 
but,  as  well,  certain  absolutely  false  principles  and 
methods  have  been  adopted  which  are  not  suscep- 
tible of  reform  but  only  of  abolition. 

Of  some  of  these  I  have  spoken  already;  the 
alarming  drift  towards  cities,  until  now  in  the 
United  States  more  than  one-half  the  population  is 
urban;  the  segregation  of  industries  in  certain  cities 
and  regions;  the  minute  division  of  labour  and  in- 
tensive specialization;  the  abnormal  growth  of  a 
true  proletariat  or  non-land-holding  class ;  the  flood- 
ing of  the  country  by  cheap  labour  drawn  from  the 
most  backward  communities  and  from  peoples  of 
low  race-value.  Out  of  this  has  arisen  a  bitter  class 
conflict  and  the  ominous  beginnings  of  a  perilous 
class  consciousness,  with  actual  warfare  joined  in 
several  countries,  and  threatened  in  all  others  where 
industrial  civilization  is  prevalent.  With  this  has 
grown  up  an  artificially  stimulated  covetousness  for 
a  thousand  futile  luxuries,  and  a  standard  of  living 
that  presupposes  a  thousand  non-essentials  as  basic 
necessities.  Production  for  profit,  not  use,  excess 
production  due  to  machinery,  efficient  organization, 
and  surplus  of  labour,  together  with  the  necessity  for 
marketing  the  product  at  a  profit,  have  produced  a 
state  of  things  where  at  least  one-half  the  available 
labour  in  the  country  is  engaged  in  the  production 
and  sale  of  articles  which  are  not  necessary  to  physi- 
cal, intellectual  or  spiritual  life,  while  of  the  remain- 
der, hardly  more  than  a  half  is  employed  in  produc- 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM  93 

tion,  the  others  are  devoting  themselves  to  distribu- 
tion and  to  the  war  of  competition  through  advertis- 
ing and  the  capturing  of  trade  by  ingenious  and  cap- 
able salesmen.  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  two  of  the 
greatest  industries  in  the  United  States  are  the  mak- 
ing of  automobiles  and  moving  pictures. 

It  is  probably  true  to  say  that  of  the  potential 
labour  in  the  United  States,  about  one-fourth  is  pro- 
ducing those  things  which  are  physically,  intellec- 
tually and  spiritually  necessary;  the  remaining  three- 
fourths  are  essentially  non-producers :  they  must, 
however,  be  housed,  fed,  clothed,  and  amused,  and 
the  cost  of  this  support  is  added  to  the  cost  of  the 
necessities  of  life.  The  reason  for  the  present  high 
cost  of  living  lies  possibly  here. 

Lest  I  be  misunderstood,  let  me  say  here  that 
under  the  head  of  necessities  of  life  I  do  not  mean 
a  new  model  automobile  each  year,  moving  pictures, 
mechanical  substitutes  for  music  or  any  other  art, 
and  the  thousand  catch-trade  devices  that  appear 
each  year  for  the  purpose  of  filching  business  from 
another  or  establishing  a  new  desire  in  the  already 
over-crowded  imaginations  of  an  over-stimulated 
populace.  Particularly  do  I  not  mean  advertising 
in  any  sense  in  which  it  is  now  understood  and  prac- 
tised. If,  as  I  believe  to  be  the  case,  production  for 
profit  rather  than  for  use,  the  reversal  of  the  an- 
cient doctrine  that  the  demand  must  produce  the 
supply,  in  favour  of  the  doctrine  that  the  supply  must 
foster  the  demand,  is  the  foundation  of  our  eco- 
nomic error  and  our  industrial  ills,  then  it  follows 
that  advertising  as  it  is  now  carried  on  by  bill- 


94      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

boards,  circulars  an,d  newspapers,  by  drummers, 
solicitors  and  consular  agents,  falls  in  the  same 
condemnation,  for  except  by  its  offices  the  system 
could  not  have  succeeded  or  continue  to  function. 
It  is  bad  in  itself  as  the  support  and  strength  of  a 
bad  institution,  but  its  guilt  does  not  stop  here. 
So  plausible  is  it,  so  essential  to  the  very  existence 
of  the  contemporary  regime,  so  knit  up  with  all  the 
commonest  affairs  of  life,  so  powerful  in  its  organi- 
zation and  broad  in  its  operations,  it  has  poisoned, 
and  continues  to  poison,  the  minds  of  men  so  that 
the  headlong  process  of  losing  all  sense  of  com- 
parative values  is  accelerated,  while  every  instinc- 
tive effort  at  recovery  and  readjustment  is  nullified. 
How  far  this  process  has  gone  may  be  illustrated 
by  two  instances.  It  is  only  a  few  months  ago  that 
a  most  respected  clergyman  publicly  declared  that 
missionaries  were  the  greatest  and  most  efficient 
asset  to  trade  because  they  were  unofficial  commer- 
cial agents  who  opened  up  new  and  savage  countries 
to  Western  commerce  through  advertising  commodi- 
ties of  which  the  natives  had  never  heard,  and  arous- 
ing in  them  a  sense  of  acquisitiveness  that  meant 
more  wealth  and  business  for  trade  and  manufacture, 
which  should  support  foreign  missions  on  this 
ground  at  least.  More  recently  the  head  of  an  ad- 
vertising concern  in  New  York  is  reported  to  have 
said:  "It  is  principally  through  advertising  that  we 
have  arrived  at  the  high  degree  of  civilization  which 
this  age  enjoys,  for  advertising  has  taught  us  the 
use  of  books  and  how  to  furnish  our  homes  with  the 
thousand  and  one  comforts  that  add  so  materially  to 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM          95 

our  physical  and  intellectual  well-being.  The  future 
of  the  world  depends  on  advertising.  Advertising  is 
the  salvation  of  civilization,  for  civilization  cannot 
outlive  advertising  a  century." 

It  is  tempting  to  linger  over  such  a  delectable 
morsel  as  this,  for  even  if  it  is  only  the  absurd  and 
irresponsible  output  of  one  poor,  foolish  man,  it 
does  express  more  or  less  what  industrial  civili- 
zation holds  to  be  true,  though  few  would  avow 
their  faith  so  whole-heartedly.  The  statement  was 
made  as  propaganda,  and  propaganda  is  merely 
advertising  in  its  most  insidious  and  dangerous  form. 
The  thing  revealed  its  possibilities  during  the  war, 
but  the  black  discredit  that  was  then  very  justly  at- 
tached to  it  could  not  prevail  against  its  manifest 
potency,  and  it  is  now  universally  used  after  the 
most  comprehensive  and  frequently  unscrupulous 
fashion,  with  results  that  can  only  be  perilous  in  the 
extreme.  The  type  and  calibre  of  mind  that  has 
now  been  released  from  long  bondage,  and  by  weight 
of  numbers  is  now  fast  taking  over  the  direction  of 
affairs,  is  curiously  subservient  to  the  written  word, 
and  lacking  a  true  sense  of  comparative  values, 
without  effective  leadership  either  secular  or  re- 
ligious, is  easily  swayed  by  every  wind  of  doctrine. 
The  forces  of  evil  that  are  ever  in  conflict  with  the 
forces  of  right  are  notoriously  ingenious  in  making 
the  worse  appear  the  better  cause,  and  with  every 
desire  for  illumination  and  for  following  the  right 
way,  the  multitude,  whether  educated  or  illiterate, 
fall  into  the  falsehoods  of  others'  imaginings. 
Money,  efficiency,  an  acquired  knowledge  of  mob 


g6      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

psychology,  the  printing  press  and  the  mail  service 
acting  in  alliance,  and  directed  by  fanatical  or  cyni- 
cal energy,  form  a  force  of  enormous  potency  that 
is  now  being  used  effectively  throughout  society.  It 
is  irresponsible,  anonymous  and  pervasive.  Through 
its  operation  the  last  barriers  are  broken  down 
between  the  leadership  of  character  and  the 
leadership  of  craft,  while  all  formal  distinctions 
between  the  valuable  and  the  valueless  are  swept 
away. 

I  have  spoken  at  some  length  of  this  particular 
element  in  the  present  condition  of  things,  because 
in  both  its  aspects,  as  the  support  of  our  present 
industrial  and  economic  system  and  as  the  efficient 
moulder  of  a  fluid  and  unstable  public  opinion,  it  is 
perhaps  the  strongest  and  most  subtle  force  of 
which  we  must  take  account. 

With  a  system  so  prevalent  as  imperial  industry, 
so  knit  up  with  every  phase  of  life  and  thought,  and 
so  determining  a  factor  in  all  our  concepts,  united 
as  it  is  with  two  such  invincible  allies  as  advertising 
and  propaganda,  it  is  inconceivable  that  it  should 
be  overthrown  by  any  human  force  from  without. 
Holding  it  to  be  essentially  wrong,  it  seems  to  me 
providential  that  it  is  already  showing  signs  of  fall- 
ing by  its  own  weight.  Production  of  commodities 
has  far  exceeded  production  of  the  means  of  pay- 
ment, and  society  is  now  running  on  promises  to 
pay,  on  paper  obligations,  on  anticipations  of  future 
production  and  sale,  on  credit,  in  a  word.  The  war 
has  enormously  magnified  this  condition  until  an  en- 
forced liquidation  would  mean  bankruptcy  for  all 


THE     INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM  97 

the  nations  of  the  earth,  while  the  production  of 
utilities  is  decreasing  in  proportion  to  the  produc- 
tion of  luxuries,  labour  is  exacting  increasing  pay  for 
decreasing  hours  of  work  and  quality  of  output,  and 
the  enormous  financial  structure,  elaborately  and 
ingeniously  built  up  through  several  generations,  is 
in  grave  danger  of  immediate  catastrophe.  The 
whole  world  is  in  the  position  of  an  insolvent  debtor 
who  is  so  deeply  involved  that  his  creditors  cannot 
afford  to  let  him  go  into  bankruptcy,  and  so  keep 
him  out  of  the  Poor  Debtor's  Court  by  doling  out 
support  from  day  to  day.  Confidence  is  the  only 
thing  that  keeps  matters  going;  what  happens  when 
this  is  lost  is  now  being  demonstrated  in  many  parts 
of  Europe.  The  optimist  claims  that  increased  pro- 
duction, coupled  with  enforced  economy,  will  pro- 
duce a  satisfactory  solution,  but  there  is  no  evidence 
that  labour,  now  having  the  whip-hand,  will  give  up 
its  present  advantage  sufficiently  to  make  this  pos- 
sible ;  even  if  it  did,  payment  must  be  in  the  form  of 
exchange  or  else  in  further  promises  to  pay,  while 
the  capacity  of  the  world  for  consumption  is  limited 
somewhere,  though  thus  far  "big  business"  has 
failed  to  recognize  this  fact.  At  present  the  interest 
charges  on  debts,  both  public  and  private,  have 
reached  a  point  where  they  come  near  to  consuming 
all  possible  profits  even  from  a  highly  accelerated 
rate  of  production.  Altogether  it  is  reasonable  to 
assume  that  the  present  financial-industrial  system 
is  near  its  term  for  reasons  inherent  in  itself,  let 
alone  the  possibility  of  a  further  extension  of  the 
drastic  and  completely  effective  measures  of  de- 


98   TOWARDS  THE  GREAT  PEACE 

struction  that  are  characteristics  of  Bolshevism  and 
its  blood-brothers. 

Assuming  that  this  is  so,  two  questions  arise: 
what  is  to  take  the  place  of  imperial  industry,  and 
how  is  this  substitution  to  be  brought  about? 

I  think  the  answer  to  the  first  is:  a  social  and 
industrial  system  based  on  small,  self-contained, 
largely  self-sufficing  units,  where  supply  follows  de- 
mand, where  production  is  primarily  for  use  not 
profit,  and  where  in  all  industrial  operations  some 
system  will  obtain  which  is  more  or  less  that  of  the 
guilds  of  the  Middle  Ages.  I  should  like  to  go  into 
this  a  little  more  in  detail  before  trying  to  answer 
the  second  question. 

The  normal  social  unit  is  a  group  of  families 
predominantly  of  the  same  race,  territorially  com- 
pact, of  substantially  the  same  ideals  as  expressed 
in  religion  and  the  philosophy  of  life,  and  sufficiently 
numerous  to  provide  from  within  itself  the  major 
part  of  those  things  which  are  necessary  to  physical, 
intellectual  and  spiritual  well-being.  It  should  con- 
sist of  a  central  nucleus  of  houses,  each  with  its 
garden,  the  churches,  schools  and  public  buildings 
that  are  requisite,  the  manufactories  and  workshops 
that  supply  the  needs  of  the  community,  the  shops 
for  sale  of  those  things  not  produced  at  home,  and 
all  necessary  places  of  amusement.  Around  this 
residential  centre  should  be  sufficient  agricultural 
land  to  furnish  all  the  farm  products  that  will  be 
consumed  by  the  community  itself.  The  nucleus  of 
habitation  and  industry,  together  with  the  surround- 
ing farms,  make  up  the  social  unit,  which  is  to  the 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM  99 

fullest  possible  degree,  self-contained,  self-sufficient 
and  self-governing. 

Certain  propositions  are  fundamental,  and  they 
are  as  follows:  Every  family  should  own  enough 
land  to  support  itself  at  need.  The  farms  included 
in  the  unit  must  produce  enough  to  meet  the  needs 
of  the  population.  Industry  must  be  so  organized 
that  it  will  normally  serve  the  resident  population 
along  every  feasible  line.  Only  such  things  as  can- 
not be  produced  at  home  on  account  of  climatic  or 
soil  limitations  should  be  imported  from  outside. 
All  necessary  professional  services  should  be  obtain- 
able within  the  community  itself.  All  financial  trans- 
actions such  as  loans,  credits,  banking  and  insurance 
should  be  domestic.  Surplus  products,  whether  agri- 
cultural, industrial  or  professional,  should  be  con- 
sidered as  by-products,  and  in  no  case  should  the 
producing  agency  acquire  such  magnitude  that  home- 
consumption  becomes  a  side  issue  and  production  for 
profit  take  the  place  of  production  for  use. 

All  this  is  absolutely  opposed  to  our  present  sys- 
tem, but  our  present  system  is  wasteful,  artificial, 
illogical,  unsocial,  and  therefore  vicious.  I  have 
said  enough  as  to  the  falsities,  the  dangers  and  the 
failures  of  bulk-production  through  the  operations 
of  capitalism,  the  factory  system  and  advertising, 
but  its  concomitant,  the  segregation  of  industries,  is 
equally  objectionable.  To  ship  hogs  1,500  miles  to 
be  slaughtered  and  packed  in  food  form,  and  then 
ship  this  manufactured  product  back  to  the  source 
from  which  the  raw  material  came ;  to  feed  a  great 
city  with  grain,  potatoes  and  fruits  coming  from 


IOO   TOWARDS   THE   GREAT   PEACE 

1,000  to  3,000  miles  away,  and  vegetables  from  a 
distance  of  several  hundred  miles,  while  the  farms 
within  a  radius  of  fifty  miles  are  abandoned  and 
barren;  to  make  all  the  shoes  for  the  nation  in  one 
small  area,  to  spin  the  wool  and  cotton  and  weave 
the  cloth  in  two  or  three  others;  to  make  the  greater 
part  of  the  furniture  in  one  state,  the  automobiles 
in  a  second  and  the  breakfast  food  in  a  third,  is  so 
preposterous  a  proposition  that  it  belongs  in  Gul- 
liver's Travels,  not  in  the  annals  of  a  supposedly 
intelligent  people.  The  only  benefit  is  that  which 
for  a  time  accrued  to  the  railways,  which  carted 
raw  materials  and  finished  products  back  and  forth 
over  thousands  of  miles  of  their  lines,  the  costs  of 
shipment  and  reshipment  being  naturally  added  to 
the  price  to  the  consumer.  The  penalties  for  this 
uneconomic  procedure  were  borne  by  society  at 
large,  not  only  in  the  increased  costs  but  through 
the  abnormal  communities,  each  with  its  tens  of 
thousands  of  operatives  all  engaged  in  the  same 
work  and  generally  drawn  from  foreign  races  (with 
the  active  co-operation  of  the  steamship  lines),  and 
the  permanent  dislocation  of  the  labour  supply,  to- 
gether with  the  complete  disruption  of  the  social 
synthesis. 

With  production  for  profit  and  segregation  of 
industries  has  come  an  almost  infinitesimal  division 
and  specialization  of  labour.  Under  a  right  indus- 
trial system  this  would  be  reduced,  not  magnified. 
The  dignity  of  labour  and  the  joy  of  creation  demand 
that  in  so  far  as  possible  each  man  should  carry 
through  one  entire  operation.  This  is  of  course 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM        IOI 

now,  and  always  has  been  under  any  highly  devel- 
oped civilization,  impossible  in  practice,  except  along 
certain  lines  of  art  and  craftsmanship.  The  evils 
of  the  existing  system  can  in  a  measure  be  done  away 
with  the  moment  production  for  use  is  the  recog- 
nized law,  for  it  is  only  in  bulk-production  that  this 
intensive  specialization  can  be  made  to  pay.  Bulk- 
production  there  will  always  be  until,  and  if,  the 
world  is  reorganized  on  the  basis  of  an  infinite 
number  of  self-contained  social  units,  but  in  the  ideal 
community — and  I  am  dealing  now  with  ideals — it 
would  not  exist. 

Allied  with  this  is  the  whole  question  of  the  fac- 
tory method  and  the  use  and  misuse  of  machinery. 
It  seems  to  me  that  the  true  principle  is  that  ma- 
chinery and  the  factory  are  admissible  only  when 
so  employed  they  actually  do  produce,  in  bulk  opera- 
tions, a  better  product,  and  with  less  labour,  than  is 
possible  through  hand  work.  Weaving,  forging  and 
all  work  where  human  action  must  be  more  or  less 
mechanical,  offer  a  fair  field  for  the  machine  and 
the  factory,  but  wherever  the  human  element  can 
enter,  where  personality  and  the  skilled  craft  of  the 
hand  are  given  play,  the  machine  and  the  factory  are 
inadmissible.  The  great  city,  creation  of  "big  busi- 
ness," segregation  of  industries,  advertising,  sales- 
manship and  a  hundred  other  concomitants  of  mod- 
ernism, have  built  up  an  abnormal  and  avaricious 
demand  for  bulk-production  along  lines  where  the 
handicraft  should  function.  It  becomes  necessary 
— let  us  say — to  provide  a  million  dollars  worth  of 
furniture  for  a  ten  million  dollar  hotel  (itself  to 


102   TOWARDS   THE   GREAT   PEACE 

be  superseded  and  scrapped  in  perhaps  ten  years) 
and  naturally  only  the  most  intensive  and  efficient 
factory  system  can  meet  thisd  demand.  Rightly, 
however,  the  furniture  of  a  community  should  be 
produced  by  the  local  cabinet  makers,  and  so  it 
should  be  in  many  other  industries  now  entirely 
taken  over  by  the  factory  system 

For  the  future  then  we  must  consciously  work  for 
the  building  upward  from  primary  units,  so  com- 
pletely reversing  our  present  practice  of  creating  the 
big  thing  and  fighting  hopelessly  to  preserve  such 
small  and  few  doles  of  liberty  and  personality  as 
may  be  permitted  to  filter  downward  from  above. 
This  is  the  only  true  democracy,  and  the  thing  we 
call  by  the  name  is  not  this,  largely  because  we  have 
bent  our  best  energies  to  the  building  up  of  vast 
and  imperial  aggregates  which  have  inevitably  as- 
sumed a  complete  unity  in  themselves  and  become 
dominating,  tyrannical  and  ruthless  forces  that  have 
operated  regardless  of  the  sound  laws  and  whole- 
some principles  of  a  right  society.  Neither  the  vital 
democracy  of  principle  nor  the  artificial  democracy 
of  practice  can  exist  in  conjunction  with  imperialism, 
whether  this  is  established  in  government,  in  indus- 
try, in  trade,  in  society  or  in  education. 

If  we  can  assume,  then,  the  gradual  development 
of  a  new  society  in  which  these  principles  will  be 
carried  out,  a  society  that  is  made  up  of  social  units 
of  human  scale,  self-contained,  self-supporting  and 
self-governed,  where  production  is  primarily  for  use 
not  profit,  and  where  bulk-production  is  practically 
non-existent,  the  sub-division  of  labour  reduced  to 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM        103 

the  lowest  practicable  point,  machinery  employed  to 
a  much  less  extent  than  now,  and  the  factory  system 
abolished,  what  organic  form  will  labour  take  on 
in  place  of  that  which  now  obtains?  It  is  possible 
to  forecast  this  only  in  the  most  general  terms,  for 
life  itself  must  operate  to  determine  the  lines  of 
development  and  dictate  the  consequent  forms.  If 
we  can  acquire  a  better  standard  of  comparative 
values,  and  with  a  clearer  and  more  fearless  vision 
estimate  the  rights  and  wrongs  of  the  contemporary 
system,  rejecting  the  ill  thing  and  jealously  preserv- 
ing, or  passionately  regaining,  the  good,  we  shall 
be  able  to  establish  certain  broad,  fundamental  and 
governing  principles,  and  doing  this  we  can  await 
in  confidence  the  evolution  of  the  organic  forms 
that  will  be  the  working  agencies  of  the  new  society. 
I  have  tried  to  indicate  some  of  the  basic  prin- 
ciples of  a  new  society.  The  operating  forms,  so 
far  as  industry  is  concerned,  will,  I  think,  follow  in 
essential  respects  the  craft-guilds  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  They  will  not  be  an  archaeological  restora- 
tion, as  some  of  the  English  protagonists  of  this 
great  revolution  seem  to  anticipate,  they  will  be 
variously  adapted  to  the  peculiar  conditions  of  a  new 
century,  but  the  basic  principles  will  be  preserved. 
Whatever  happens,  I  am  sure  it  will  not  be  either  a 
continuation  of  the  present  system  of  capitalism  and 
profit-hunting,  or  nationalization  of  industries,  or 
state  socialism  in  any  form,  or  anything  remotely 
resembling  Bolshevism,  syndicalism  or  a  "dictator- 
ship of  the  proletariat."  Here,  as  in  government, 
education  and  social  relations,  the  power  and  the 


IO4      TOWARDS      THE      GREAT      PEACE 

authority  of  the  state  must  decline,  government 
itself  withdrawing  more  and  more  from  interference 
with  the  operation  of  life,  and  liberty  find  its  way 
back  to  the  individual  and  to  the  social  and  economic 
groups.  We  live  now  under  a  more  tyrannical  and 
inquisitorial  regime,  in  spite  of  (partly  perhaps  be- 
cause of)  its  democratic  forms  and  dogmas,  than  is 
common  in  historical  records.  Nationalization  or 
state  socialism  would  mean  so  great  a  magnifying  of 
this  condition  that  existence  would  soon  become  both 
grotesque  and  intolerable.  We  must  realize,  and 
soon,  that  man  may  lose  even  the  last  semblance  of 
liberty,  as  well  under  a  nominal  democracy  as  under 
a  nominal  despotism  or  theocracy. 

The  guild  system  was  the  solution  of  the  indus- 
trial problem  offered  and  enforced  by  Christianity 
working  through  secular  life;  it  presupposed  the 
small  social  and  industrial  unit  and  becomes  mean- 
ingless if  conceived  in  the  gigantic  and  comprehen- 
sive scale  of  modern  institutions.  "National 
guilds"  is  a  contradiction  in  terms :  it  takes  on  the 
same  element  of  error  that  inheres  in  the  idea  of 
"one  big  union."  In  certain  respects  the  Christian 
guild  resembled  the  modern  trade  union,  but  it  dif- 
fered from  it  in  more  ways,  and  it  seems  to  be  true 
that  wherever  this  difference  exists  the  guild  was 
right  and  the  union  is  wrong.  Community  of  fel- 
lowship and  action  amongst  men  of  each  craft  trade 
or  calling  is  essential  under  any  social  system,  good 
or  bad,  and  it  would  be  inseparable  from  the  better 
society  that  must  sometime  grow  up  on  the  basis  of 
the  unit  of  human  scale,  for  these  autonomous 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM        105 

groups,  in  order  to  furnish  substantially  all  that 
their  component  parts  could  require,  would  have  to 
be  of  considerable  size  as  compared  with  the  little 
farming  villages  of  New  England,  though  in  con- 
trast with  the  great  cities  of  modernism  they  would 
be  small  indeed.  In  these  new  "walled  towns"  there 
would  be  enough  men  engaged  in  agriculture,  in  the 
necessary  industrial  occupations,  in  trade  and  in  the 
professions  to  form  many  guilds  of  workable  size, 
and  normally  these  guilds  would  neither  contain 
members  of  two  or  more  professions  or  occupations, 
nor  those  from  outside  the  community  itself.  The 
guild  cannot  function  under  intensive  methods  of 
production  or  where  production  is  primarily  for 
profit,  or  where  the  factory  system  prevails,  or 
where  capitalism  is  the  established  system,  or  under 
combinations,  trusts  or  other  devices  for  the  estab- 
lishing and  maintenance  of  great  aggregates  tending 
always  towards  monopoly.  However  much  we  may 
admire  the  guild  system  and  desire  its  restoration, 
we  may  as  well  recognize  this  fact  at  once.  The 
imperial  scale  must  go  and  the  human  scale  be  re- 
stored before  the  guild  can  come  back  in  any  gen- 
eral sense. 

I  am  assuming  that  this  will  happen,  either 
through  conscious  action  on  the  part  of  the  people 
or  as  the  result  of  catastrophe  that  always  over- 
takes those  who  remain  wedded  to  the  illusions  of 
falsity.  On  this  assumption  what  are  these  enduring 
principles  that  will  control  the  guild  system  of  in- 
dustry in  the  new  State,  however  may  be  its  form? 

The  answer  is  to  be   found  in  the  old  guilds. 


IO6   TOWARDS  THE  GREAT  PEACE 

There  was  first  of  all  the  essentially  human  element 
of  fellowship,  the  eternal  need  of  man  to  act  as  the 
gregarious  and  companionable  animal  that  he  is. 
The  second  was  the  union  in  one  cohesive  group  of 
the  three  functions  now  known  as  capital,  manage- 
ment and  labour.  While  the  guilds  flourished,  opera- 
tions were  comparatively  small,  usury,  or  the  giving 
and  taking  money  for  the  use  of  money,  was  under 
the  condemnation  of  the  Church,  while  exploitation, 
advertising  and  competition,  as  we  see  them,  were 
unknown,  therefore  there  was  no  need  for  great 
capital  or  an  elaborate  financial  system,  and  natur- 
ally the  sharp  lines  of  demarcation  between  the 
various  forces  that  now  enter  into  any  industrial 
enterprise  did  not  exist,  hence  it  was  normal  for  all 
those  engaged  in  any  given  industry  to  belong  to  the 
same  guild,  that  is  to  say,  masters,  journeymen  and 
apprentices.  The  result  was  unity  of  aim,  com- 
munity of  interests,  and  fellowship.  By  a  system 
of  natural  progression,  fostered  in  every  way  both 
in  the  interests  of  the  guild  and  as  a  mere  matter 
of  human  justice  and  Christian  charity,  the  appren- 
tice became  in  due  time  a  journeyman,  the  journey- 
man a  master,  the  only  considerations  and  qualifica- 
tions being  capacity,  excellence  of  work,  and  good 
character. 

This  matter  of  good  workmanship  was  dealt  with 
after  a  fashion  that  can  only  seem  strange  to  us  of 
the  present  day,  for  curiously  enough  it  was  almost 
the  prime  object  of  the  guild  to  raise  its  product 
to  the  highest  possible  standard  of  excellence  and 
maintain  it  there.  The  welfare  of  its  members  in 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM        107 

life  and  death,  and  that  of  their  families,  was  uni- 
versally defended  and  as  far  as  possible  guaran- 
teed, but  the  quality  of  workmanship  was  even  more 
jealously  guarded  as  a  matter  of  pride  and  of  honour. 
While  the  union  of  today  determines  its  standard 
on  the  basis  of  the  capacity  of  its  least  competent 
members,  and  penalizes  those  who  can  do  better 
work  and  try  to  do  it,  the  guild  fixed  its  standard 
at  that  of  its  ablest  men  and  then  did  everything  in 
its  power  to  raise  the  more  backward  brothers  to 
this  high  point  of  excellence. 

I  have  said  that  the  guild  looked  after  the  inter- 
ests of  its  members  in  life  and  death.  This  is  true. 
Not  only  did  it  guard  them  against  oppression  of 
any  kind  and  any  invasion  of  their  liberties;  not 
only  did  it  play  the  part  of  the  modern  insurance 
company  and  fraternal  society,  looking  out  for  its 
members  and  their  families  in  case  of  illness,  acci- 
dent and  death;  not  only  did  it  act  as  guardian  for 
orphans  and  as  trustee  of  property,  it  also  extended 
its  care  beyond  the  barrier  of  the  grave,  and  by 
requiems,  masses,  prayers  and  votive  offerings  did 
all  it  could  for  the  souls  of  its  dead  members.  In 
the  good  days  religion  was  closely  knit  up  with  daily 
life,  and  its  immanence  and  reality  were  strongly 
fortified  by  the  guilds  themselves.  Every  guild  was 
formally  placed  under  the  protection  of  a  patron 
.saint,  there  were  many  solemn  and  corporate  re- 
ligious festivals,  often  special  chapels  in  the  cathe- 
dral or  parish  church  set  apart  for  some  guild  or 
group  of  guilds,  and  richly  decorated,  or  even  built, 
out  of  their  bounty,  while  stained  glass  windows, 


108      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

altars,  shrines,  vestments  and  sacred  vessels  were 
given  in  incredible  quantities  for  the  furnishing  and 
embellishment  of  the  chapel  or  church;  funds  also 
for  the  maintenance  of  priestly  offices  especially  dedi- 
cated to  the  guild. 

Closely  allied  with  the  religious  spirit  was  that 
of  good-fellowship  and  merrymaking.  Every  sort 
of  feast  and  game  and  pageant  was  a  part  of  the 
guild  system,  as  it  was  indeed  of  life  generally  at 
this  time  when  men  did  not  have  to  depend  upon 
hired  professional  purveyors  of  amusement  for  their 
edification.  What  they  wanted  they  did  themselves, 
and  this  community  in  worship  and  community  in 
merrymaking  did  more  even  than  the  merging  of 
common  material  interests,  to  knit  the  whole  body 
together  into  a  living  organism. 

In  how  far  the  old  system  can  be  revived  and  put 
into  operation  is  a  question.  Certainly  it  cannot  be 
adopted  as  a  fad  and  imposed  on  an  unwilling 
society  as  a  clever  archaeological  restoration.  It 
will  have  to  grow  naturally  out  of  life  itself  and 
along  lines  at  present  hardly  predicable.  There  are 
many  evidences  that  just  this  spontaneous  genera- 
tion is  taking  place.  The  guild  system  is  being 
preached  widely  in  England  where  the  defects  of 
the  present  scheme  are  more  obvious  and  the  re- 
sulting labour  situation — or  rather  social  situation — 
is  more  fraught  with  danger  than  elsewhere,  and 
already  the  restoration  seems  to  have  made  consid- 
erable headway.  I  am  convinced,  however,  that 
the  vital  aspects  of  the  case  are  primarily  due  to  the 
interior  working  of  a  new  spirit  born  of  disillusion- 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM        109 

ment  and  the  undying  fire  in  man  that  flames  always 
towards  regeneration;  what  the  ardent  preaching  of 
the  enthusiastic  protagonists  of  the  crusade  best  ac- 
complishes is  the  creation  in  the  minds  of  those  not 
directly  associated  with  the  movement  of  a  readi- 
ness to  give  sympathy  and  support  to  the  actual 
accomplishment  when  it  manifests  itself.  Recently 
I  have  come  in  contact  here  in  America  with  several 
cases  where  the  workmen  themselves  have  broken 
away  from  the  old  ways  and  have  actually  estab- 
lished what  are  to  all  intents  and  purposes  craft- 
guilds,  without  in  the  least  realizing  that  they  were 
doing  this. 

I  think  the  process  is  bound  to  continue,  for  the 
old  order  has  broken  down  and  is  so  thoroughly 
discredited  it  can  hardly  be  restored.  If  time  is 
granted  us,  great  things  must  follow,  but  it  is  in- 
creasingly doubtful  if  this  necessary  element  of  time 
can  be  counted  on.  Daily  the  situation  grows  more 
menacing.  Capital,  which  so  long  exploited  labour 
to  its  own  fabulous  profit,  is  not  disposed  to  sit 
quiet  while  the  fruits  of  its  labours  and  all  prospects 
of  future  emoluments  are  being  dissipated,  and  it  is 
hard  at  work  striving  to  effect  a  "return  to  nor- 
malcy." In  this  it  is  being  unconsciously  aided  by  the 
bulk  of  union  labour  which,  encouraged  by  the  para- 
mount position  it  achieved  during  the  war,  influenced 
by  an  avarice  it  may  well  have  learned  from  its 
former  masters,  as  narrow  in  its  vision  as  they,  and 
increasingly  subservient  to  a  leadership  which  is 
frequently  cynical  and  unscrupulous  and  always  of 
an  order  of  character  and  intelligence  which  is  tend- 


IIO      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

ing  to  lower  and  lower  levels,  is  alienating  sympathy 
and  bringing  unionism  into  disrepute.  In  the  United 
States  the  tendency  is  steadily  towards  a  very  dan- 
gerous reactionism,  with  a  corresponding  strength- 
ening of  the  radical  element  which  aims  at  revolu- 
tion, and  that  impossible  thing,  a  proletarian  dis- 
tatorship.  It  is  this  latter  which  is  rampant  and  at 
present  unchecked  in  Europe,  and  this  also  is  a  con- 
stant menace  to  the  success  of  those  sane  and  right- 
eous movements  which  take  their  lead  from  the 
guild  system  of  the  Middle  Ages.  A  third  danger, 
but  one  which  is  constantly  on  the  decline  at  present, 
partly  because  of  the  general  disrepute  of  govern- 
ments and  partly  because  of  the  enormous  accessions 
of  power  now  accruing  both  to  reactionism  and  radi- 
cal revolutionism,  or  "Bolshevism,"  is  state  social- 
ism or  nationalization,  which  leaves  untouched  all 
the  fatal  elements  in  industrialism  while  it  changes 
only  the  agents  of  administration.  The  complete 
collapse  of  able  and  constructive  and  righteous  lead- 
ership, which  is  one  of  the  startling  phenomena  of 
modernism,  has  left  uncontrolled  the  enormous  en- 
ergy that  has  been  released  during  the  last  three 
generations,  and  this  is  working  blindly  but  effec- 
tively towards  a  cataclysm  so  precipitate  and  compre- 
hensive that  it  is  impossible  not  to  fear  that  it  may 
determine  long  before  the  sober  and  informed  ele- 
ments in  society  have  accomplished  very  much  in 
the  recovery  and  establishment  of  sound  and  right- 
eous principles  and  methods. 

Of  course  we  can  compass  whichever  result  we 
will.     We  may  shut  our  eyes  to  the  omens  and  let 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM        III 

matters  drift  to  disaster,  or  we  may  take  thought 
and  council  and  avert  the  penalty  that  threatens 
us;  the  event  is  in  our  own  hands.  It  is  as  criminal 
to  foresee  and  predict  only  catastrophe  as  it  is  to 
compass  this  through  lethargy,  selfishness  and  illu- 
sion. We  are  bound  to  believe  that  righteousness 
will  prevail,  even  in  our  own  time,  and  believing 
this,  what,  in  general  terms  will  be  the  construction 
of  the  new  system  that  must  take  the  place  of  in- 
dustrialism? 

I  have  already  indicated  what  seem  to  me  the 
fundamental  ideas  as:  the  small  social  unit  that  is 
self-sustaining;  production  primarily  for  use,  cooper- 
ation in  place  of  competition;  a  revived  guild  sys- 
tem with  the  abolition  of  capitalism,  exploitation  and 
intensive  specialization  as  we  now  know  these  domi- 
nant factors  in  modern  civilization.  In  the  applica- 
tion of  these  principles  there  are  certain  innovations 
that  will,  I  think,  take  place,  and  these  may  be  listed 
somewhat  as  follows: 

Land  holding  will  become  universal  and  the  true 
proletariat  or  landless  class  will  disappear.  It  may 
be  that  the  holding  of  land  will  become  a  prerequi- 
site to  active  citizenship.  Industrial  production  being 
for  use  not  profit,  the  great  city  becomes  a  thing 
of  the  past,  and  life  is  rendered  simpler  through 
the  elimination  of  a  thousand  useless  and  vicious 
luxuries;  those  employed  in  mechanical  industries 
will  be  incalculably  fewer  than  now,  while  those  that 
remain  will  give  only  a  portion  of  their  time  to  in- 
dustrial production,  the  remainder  being  available 
for  productive  work  on  their  own  gardens  and 


112   TOWARDS   THE   GREAT   PEACE 

farms.  The  handicrafts  will  be  restored  to  their 
proper  place  and  dignity,  taking  over  into  creative 
labour  large  numbers  of  those  who  otherwise  would 
be  sacrificed  to  the  factory  system.  Where  bulk 
production,  as  in  weaving  and  the  preparation  and 
manufacturing  of  metals,  is  economical  and  unavoid- 
able and  carried  on  by  factory  methods,  these  manu- 
factories will  probably  be  taken  over  by  the  several 
communities  (not  by  the  state  as  a  whole)  and 
administered  as  public  institutions  for  the  benefit  of 
the  community  and  under  conditions  and  regulations 
which  ensure  justice  and  well-being  to  the  employees. 
All  those  in  any  community  engaged  in  a  given  occu- 
pation, as  for  example,  building,  will  form  one  guild 
made  up  of  masters,  journeymen  and  apprentices, 
with  the  same  principles  and  much  the  same  methods 
as  prevailed  under  the  ancient  guild  system.  Fluc- 
tuating scales  of  prices  determined  by  fluctuating 
conditions  of  competition,  supply  and  demand,  and 
power  of  coercion,  will  give  place  to  "the  fair  price" 
fixed  by  concerted  community  action  and  revised 
from  time  to  time  in  order  to  preserve  a  right  bal- 
ance with  the  general  scale  of  cost  of  raw  materials 
and  cost  of  living.  A  maximum  of  returns  in  the 
shape  of  profits  or  dividends  will  be  fixed  by  law. 
The  community  itself  will  undertake  the  furnishing 
of  credits,  loans  and  necessary  capital  for  the  estab- 
lishing of  a  new  business,  charging  a  small  rate  of 
interest  and  maintaining  a  reserve  fund  to  meet 
these  operations.  Private  banking,  insurance  and 
the  loaning  of  money  on  collateral  will  cease  to  exist. 
I  dare  say  this  will  all  sound  chimerical  and  ir- 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM        113 

rational  in  the  extreme ;  I  do  not  see  it  in  that  light. 
Its  avowed  object  is  the  supersession  of  "big  busi- 
ness" in  all  its  phases  by  something  that  comes  down 
to  human  scale.  It  aims  to  reduce  labour  and  divide 
it  more  evenly  by  making  the  great  mass  of  non- 
producers — those  engaged  in  distribution,  salesman- 
ship, advertising,  propaganda,  and  the  furnishing  of 
things  unnecessary  to  the  bodily,  intellectual  and 
spiritual  needs  of  man — actual  producers  and  self- 
supporting  to  a  very  large  extent.  It  aims  at  re- 
storing to  work  some  sense  of  the  joy  in  creation 
through  active  mind  and  hand.  It  aims  at  the 
elimination  of  the  parasitic  element  in  society  and 
of  that  dangerous  factor  which  subsists  on  wealth 
it  acquires  without  earning,  and  by  sheer  force  of 
its  own  opulence  dominates  and  degrades  society. 
It  does  not  strike  at  private  ownership,  but  rather 
exalts,  extends  and  defends  this,  but  it  does  cut  into 
all  the  theories  and  practices  of  communism  and 
socialism  by  establishing  the  principle  and  practice 
of  fellowship  and  cooperation.  Is  this  "chimerical 
and  irrational"  ? 

Meanwhile  the  "walled  towns"  do  not  exist  and 
may  not  for  generations.  "Big  business"  is  indis- 
posed to  abrogate  itself.  Trade  unionism  is  fighting 
for  its  life  and  thereafter  for  world  conquest,  while 
the  enmity  between  capital  and  labour  increases,  with 
no  evidence  that  a  restored  guild  system  is  even 
approximately  ready  to  take  its  place.  Strikes  and 
lockouts  grow  more  and  more  numerous,  and  wider 
and  more  menacing  in  their  scope.  The  day  of  the 
"general  strike"  has  only  been  delayed  at  the  elev- 


114      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

enth  hour  in  several  countries,  and  a  general  strike, 
if  it  can  hold  for  a  sufficient  period,  means,  where- 
ever  it  occurs  and  whenever  it  succeeds,  the  end  of 
civilization  and  the  loosing  of  the  floods  of  anarchy. 
There  is  hardly  time  for  us  patiently  to  await  the 
slow  process  of  individual  and  corporate  enlighten- 
ment or  the  spontaneous  development  of  the  autona- 
mous  communities  which,  if  they  were  sufficient  in 
number,  would  solve  the  problem  through  eliminat- 
ing the  danger.  What  then,  in  the  premises,  can 
we  do? 

There  are  of  course  certain  concrete  things  which 
might  help,  as  for  instance  the  further  extension  and 
honest  trying  out  of  the  "Kansas  plan"  for  reg- 
ulating industrial  relations;  the  forming  of  "con- 
sumers leagues,"  and  all  possible  support  and 
furtherance  of  cooperative  efforts  of  every  sort 
There  are  further  possibilities  (perhaps  hardly  prob- 
abilities) of  controlling  stock  issues  and  stock  hold- 
ings so  that  dividends  do  not  have  to  be  paid  on 
grossly  inflated  capitalization,  and  fixing  the  max- 
imum of  dividends  payable  to  non-active  stockhold- 
ers. Equally  desirable  but  equally  improbable,  is 
the  raising  of  the  level  of  leadership  in  the  labour 
unions  so  that  these  valuable  institutions  may  no 
longer  stultify  themselves  and  wreck  their  own 
cause  by  their  unjust  and  anti-social  regulations  as 
to  apprentices,  control  of  maximum  output  and  its 
standard  of  quality,  division  of  labour  with  iron- 
clad inhibitions  against  one  man  doing  another's 
work  and  against  one  man  doing  what  six  men  can 
do  less  well,  and  as  to  the  obligation  to  strike  on 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM        115 

order  when  no  local  or  personal  grievance  exists. 
Most  useful  of  all  would  be  a  voluntary  renunci- 
ation, on  the  part  of  the  purchasing  public,  of  nine- 
tenths  of  the  futile  luxuries  they  now  insanely  de* 
mand,  coupled  with  the  production  by  themselves 
of  some  of  the  commodities  which  are  easily  produc- 
able;  in  other  words,  establishing  some  measure  of 
self-support  and  so  releasing  many  men  and  women 
from  the  curse  of  existence  under  factory  conditions 
and  giving  them  an  opportunity  of  living  a  nor- 
mal life  under  self-supporting  circumstances.  This, 
coupled  with  a  fostering  of  the  "back  to  the  farm" 
movement,  and  the  development  of  conditions  which 
would  make  this  process  more  practicable  and  the 
life  more  attractive,  would  do  much,  though  in  small 
ways,  towards  producing  a  more  wholesome  and 
less  threatening  state  of  affairs. 

Back  of  the  whole  problem,  however,  lies  a  fal- 
lacy in  our  conception  of  existence  that  must  be 
eliminated  before  even  the  most  constructive  pan- 
aceas can  possibly  work.  I  mean  the  whole  doctrine 
of  natural  rights  which  has  become  the  citadel  of 
capitalism  in  all  its  most  offensive  aspects,  and  of 
labour  in  its  most  insolent  assumptions.  The 
"rights"  of  property,  the  "right"  to  strike,  the 
"right"  to  collective  bargaining,  the  "right"  to  shut 
down  an  essential  industry  or  to  "walk  out"  and 
then  picket  the  place  so  that  it  may  not  be  re- 
opened, the  "right"  to  vote  and  hold  office  and  do 
any  fool  thing  you  please  so  long  as  it  is  within 
the  law,  these  are  applications  of  what  I  mean  when 
I  speak  of  a  gross  fallacy  that  has  come  into  being 


Il6   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT   PEACE 

and  has  stultified  our  intelligence  while  bringing 
near  the  wrecking  of  our  whole  system. 

Neither  man  nor  his  community  possesses  any  ab- 
solute rights;  they  are  all  conditioned  on  how  they 
are  exercised.  If  they  are  not  so  conditioned  they 
become  privilege,  which  is  a  right  not  subject  to 
conditions,  and  privilege  is  one  of  the  things  repub- 
licanism and  democracy  and  every  other  effort  to- 
wards human  emancipation  have  set  themselves  up 
to  destroy.  Even  the  "right  to  life,  liberty  and  the 
pursuit  of  happiness"  is  conditioned  by  the  manner 
of  use,  and  the  same  is  true  of  every  other  and 
unspecified  right.  I  do  not  propose  to  speak  here 
of  more  than  one  aspect  of  this  self-evident  truth, 
but  the  single  instance  I  cite  is  one  that  bears  closely 
on  the  question  of  our  industrial  and  economic  sit- 
uation; it  is  the  responsibility  to  society  of  property 
or  capital  on  the  one  hand  and  of  labour  on  the 
other,  when  both  invoke  their  "rights"  to  justify 
them  in  oppressing  the  general  public  in  the  pursuit 
of  their  own  natural  interests. 

During  the  Middle  Ages,  just  as  the  political 
theory  maintained  that  while  a  king  ruled  by  divine 
right,  this  right  gave  him  no  authority  to  govern 
wrong,  so  the  social  theory  held  that  while  a  man 
had  a  right  to  private  property  he  had  no  right  to 
use  it  against  society,  nor  could  the  labourer  use  his 
own  rights  to  the  injury  of  the  same  institution. 
Power,  property  and  labour  must  be  used  as  a 
function,  i.  e.,  "an  activity  which  embodies  and  ex- 
presses the  idea  of  social  purpose."  Unless  I  am 
mistaken,  this  is  at  the  basis  of  our  "common  law." 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM        117 

As  Mediaevalism  gave  place  to  the  Renaissance 
this  Christian  idea  was  abandoned,  and  increasingly 
the  obligation  was  severed  from  the  right,  which  so 
became  that  odious  thing,  privilege.  Intolerable 
in  its  injustice  and  oppression,  this  privilege,  which 
by  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  had  become 
the  attribute  of  the  aristocracy,  was  completely  over- 
thrown, in  France  first  of  all,  and  a  new  doctrine  of 
rights  was  enunciated  and  put  in  operation.  Un- 
fortunately the  result  was  in  essence  simply  a  trans- 
forming of  privilege  from  one  body  to  another,  for 
the  old  conception  of  social  purpose,  as  the  neces- 
sary concomitant  of  acknowledged  rights,  did  not 
emerge  from  the  shadows  of  the  Middle  Ages;  it 
had  been  too  long  forgotten.  The  new  "rights" 
were  exclusively  individualistic,  in  practice,  though  in 
the  minds  of  the  idealists  who  formulated  them,  they 
had  their  social  aspect.  Their  promulgation  sy- 
chronized  with  the  sudden  rise  and  violent  expansion 
of  industrialism,  and  as  one  country  after  another 
followed  the  lead  of  England  in  accepting  the  new 
system,  they  hardened  into  an  iron-clad  scheme  for 
the  defence  of  property  and  the  free  action  of  the 
holders  and  manipulators  of  property.  Backed  by 
the  economic  philosophy  of  Locke,  Adam  Smith, 
Bentham  and  the  Manchester  School,  generally, 
and  the  evolutionary  theories  of  the  exponents  of 
Darwinism,  and  abetted  by  an  endless  series  of 
statutes,  the  idea  of  the  exemption  of  property  hold- 
ers from  any  responsibility  to  society  for  the  use 
of  their  property,  became  a  fixed  part  of  the  mental 
equipment  of  modernism.  Precisely  the  same  thing 


Il8   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT  PEACE 

happened  politically  and  socially.  Rights  were  per- 
sonal and  implied  no  necessary  obligation  to  society 
as  a  whole;  they  were  personal  attributes  and  as  such 
to  be  defended  at  all  costs. 

Now  the  result  of  this  profound  error  as  to  the 
existence,  nature  and  limitation  of  these  personal 
rights  has  meant  simply  the  destruction  of  a  right- 
eous and  unified  society  which  works  by  cooperation 
and  fellowship,  and  the  substitution  of  individuals 
and  corporate  bodies  who  work  by  competition, 
strife  and  mutual  aggression  towards  the  attainment 
of  all  they  can  get  under  the  impulse  of  what  was 
once  praised  as  "enlightened  self  interest."  In 
other  words — war.  The  conflict  that  began  in  1914 
was  not  a  war  hurled  into  the  midst  of  a  white 
peace,  it  was  only  a  military  war  arising  in  the 
centre  of  a  far  greater  social  war,  for  there  is  no 
other  word  that  is  descriptive.  Rights  that  are 
not  contingent  on  the  due  discharge  of  duties  and 
obligations  are  but  hateful  privilege;  privilege  has 
issue  in  selfishness  and  egotism,  which  in  turn  work 
themselves  out  in  warfare  and  in  the  hatred  that 
both  precedes  and  follows  conflict. 

The  net  result  of  a  century  and  a  half  of  in- 
dustrialism is  avarice,  warfare  and  hate.  Society 
can  continue  even  when  avariciousness  is  rampant — 
for  a  time — and  warfare  of  one  sort  or  another 
seems  inseparable  from  humanity,  at  all  events  it 
has  always  been  so,  but  hatred  is  another  matter, 
for  it  is  the  negation  of  social  life  and  is  its  sol- 
vent. Anger  passes;  it  is  sometimes  even  righteous, 
but  hatred  is  synonymous  with  death  in  that  it  dis- 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM        119 

solves  every  unit,  reducing  it  to  its  component  parts 
and  subjecting  each  of  these  to  dissolution  in  its 
turn.  Righteous  anger  roused  the  nations  into  the 
war  that  hate  had  engendered,  but  hate  has  fol- 
lowed after  and  for  the  moment  is  victorious.  Rus- 
sia seethes  with  hatred  and  is  perishing  of  its  poison, 
while  there  is  not  another  country  in  Europe,  of 
those  that  were  involved  in  the  war,  where  the  same 
is  not  true  in  varying  degrees;  hatred  of  race  for 
race,  of  nation  for  nation,  of  class  for  class,  of  one 
social  or  industrial  or  economic  or  political  institu- 
tion for  another.  This,  above  all  else,  is  the  disin- 
tegrating influence,  and  against  it  no  social  organism, 
no  civilization  can  stand.  Unless  it  is  abrogated  it 
means  an  ending  of  another  epoch  of  human  life, 
a  period  of  darkness  and  another  beginning,  some 
time  after  the  poison  has  been  worked  out  by  misery, 
adversity  and  forced  repentance. 

It  is  this  prevalence  of  hatred,  reinforced  by  avar- 
ice and  perpetuated  by  incessant  warfare,  that  nega- 
tives all  the  efforts  that  are  made  towards  effecting 
a  correspondence  between  the  divided  interests  that 
are  the  concomitant  of  industrialism.  Strikes  and 
lockouts,  trades  unions  and  employers'  associations 
as  they  are  now  constituted  and  as  they  now  operate, 
syndicalism  and  Bolshevism  and  proletarian  dictator- 
ships, protective  tariffs  and  commercial  spheres  of 
influence,  propaganda  and  subsidized  newspapers  are 
all  energized  by  the  principle  of  hate,  and  no  good 
thing  can  come  of  any  of  them.  Nor  is  it  enough  to 
work  for  the  re-establishment  of  justice  even  by 
those  methods  of  righteousness,  and  with  the  im- 


I2O   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT  PEACE 

pulse  towards  righteousness,  which  are  so  different 
from  those  which  are  functioning  at  present  along 
the  lines  of  contemporary  industrial  "reform." 
Justice  is  a  "natural"  virtue  with  a  real  place  in 
society,  but  the  only  saving  force  today  is  a  super- 
natural virtue.  This,  amongst  other  things,  Christ 
brought  into  the  world  and  left  as  the  saving  force 
amongst  the  race  He  had  redeemed  and  in  the  so- 
ciety reconstituted  in  accordance  with  His  will.  This 
supernatural  virtue  is  Charity,  sometimes  expressed 
in  the  simpler  form  of  Love,  the  essence  of  the  social 
code  of  Christianity  and  the  symbol  of  the  New 
Dispensation  as  justice  was  the  symbol  of  the  Old. 
Just  in  so  far  as  a  man  or  a  cult  or  an  interest  or  a 
corporation  or  a  state  or  a  generation  or  a  race, 
relinquishes  charity  as  its  controlling  spirit,  in  so 
far  it  relinquishes  its  place  in  Christian  society  and 
its  claim  to  the  Christian  name,  while  it  is  voided  of 
all  power  for  good  or  possibility  of  continuance. 
Where  charity  is  gone,  intellectual  capacity,  effectual 
power,  and  even  justice  itself  become,  not  energies 
of  good,  but  potent  contributions  to  evil.  Is  this 
supernatural  gift  of  charity  a  mark  of  contemporary 
civilization?  Does  it  manifest  itself  with  power 
today  in  the  dealings  between  class  and  class,  be- 
tween interest  and  interest,  between  nation  and  na- 
tion? If  not,  then  we  have  forfeited  the  name  of 
Christian  and  betrayed  Christian  civilization  into 
the  hands  of  its  enemies,  while  our  efforts  towards 
saving  what  is  left  to  us  of  a  once  consistent  and 
righteous  society  will  be  without  result  except  as  an 


THE    INDUSTRIAL    PROBLEM        121 

acceleration  of  the  now  headlong  process  of  dissolu- 
tion. 

I  am  not  charging  any  class  or  any  interest  or  any 
people  with  exclusive  apostacy.  In  the  end  there  is 
little  to  choose  between  one  or  another.  Labour  is 
not  more  culpable  than  capital,  nor  the  proletarian 
than  the  industrial  magnate  and  the  financier,  nor 
the  nominal  secularist  than  the  nominal  religionist. 
Nor  am  I  charging  conscious  and  wilful  acceptance 
of  wrong  in  the  place  of  right.  It  is  the  institution 
itself,  industrialism  as  it  has  come  to  be,  with  all  its 
concomitants  and  derivatives,  that  has  betrayed  man 
to  his  disgrace  and  his  society  to  condemnation,  and 
so  long  as  this  system  endures  so  long  will  recovery 
be  impossible  and  regeneration  a  vain  thing  vainly 
imagined.  Charity,  that  is  to  say,  fellowship,  gen- 
erosity, pity,  self-sacrifice,  chivalry,  all  that  is  com- 
prehended in  the  thing  that  Christ  was,  and 
preached,  and  promulgated  as  the  fundamental  law 
of  life,  cannot  come  back  to  the  world  so  long  as 
avarice,  warfare  and  hate  continue  to  exist,  and 
through  Charity  alone  can  we  find  the  solution  of 
the  industrial  and  economic  problem  that  must  be 
solved  under  penalty  of  social  death. 


THE  POLITICAL  ORGANIZATION  OF 
SOCIETY 

T  N  THESE  essays,  which  look  towards  a  new 
•*•  social  synthesis,  I  find  myself  involved  in  some- 
what artificial  subdivisions.  Industrial,  social  and 
political  forces  all  react  one  upon  another,  and  the 
complete  social  product  is  the  result  of  the  inter- 
play of  these  forces,  coordinated  and  vitalized  by 
philosophy,  education  and  religion.  To  isolate  each 
factor  and  consider  it  separately  is  apt  to  result  in 
false  values,  but  there  seems  no  other  way  in  which 
the  subject,  which  is  essentially  one,  may  be  divided 
into  the  definite  parts  which  are  consequent  on  the 
form  of  a  course  of  lectures.  In  considering  now 
the  political  estate  of  the  human  social  organism  it 
will  be  evident  that  I  hold  that  this  must  be  contin- 
gent on  many  elements  that  reveal  themselves  in  a 
contributory  industrial  system,  in  the  principles  that 
are  embodied  in  social  relationships,  and  in  the  gen- 
eral scheme  of  such  a  working  philosophy  of  life 
as  may  predominate  amongst  the  component  parts 
of  the  synthetic  society  which  is  the  product  of  all 
these  varied  energies  and  the  organic  forms  through 
which  they  operate. 

Political  organization  has  always  been  a  power- 
ful preoccupation  of  mankind,  and  the  earliest  rec- 
ords testify  to  its  antiquity.  The  regulation  of 

122 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION          123 

human  intercourse,  the  delimiting  of  rights  and  priv- 
ileges, protection  of  life  and  property,  the  codify- 
ing of  laws,  vague,  various  and  conflicting,  the 
making  of  new  laws  and  the  enforcing  of  those  that 
have  taken  organic  form;  all  these  and  an  hundred 
other  governmental  functions,  appeal  strongly  to 
the  mind  and  touch  closely  on  personal  interests. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  the  political  history  of  human 
society  is  the  most  varied,  voluminous  and  popular 
in  its  appeal.  At  the  present  moment  this  problem 
has,  in  general,  an  even  more  poignant  appeal,  and 
no  rival  except  the  industrial  problem,  for  in  both 
cases  systems  that,  up  to  ten  years  ago,  were  ques- 
tioned only  by  a  minority  (large  in  the  case  of  in- 
dustry, small  and  obscure  in  the  case  of  govern- 
ment) have  since  completely  broken  down,  and  it  is 
probable  that  a  political  system  which  had  existed 
throughout  the  greater  part  of  Europe  and  the 
Americas  for  a  century  and  a  half,  almost  without 
serious  criticism,  has  now  as  many  assailants  as  in- 
dustrialism itself. 

The  change  is  startling  from  the  "Triumphant 
Democracy"  period,  a  space  of  time  as  clearly  de- 
fined and  as  significant  in  its  characteristics  as  the 
"Victorian  Era."  Before  the  war,  during  the  war, 
and  throughout  the  earlier  years  of  the  even  more 
devastating  "peace,"  the  system  which  followed  the 
ruin  of  the  Renaissance  autocracies,  the  essential  el- 
ements in  which  were  an  ever-widening  suffrage,  par- 
liamentary government,  and  the  universal  opera- 
tion of  the  quantitative  standard  of  values,  was 
never  questioned  or  criticised,  except  in  matters 


124   TOWARDS   THE   GREAT   PEACE 

of  detail.  That  it  was  the  most  perfect  govern- 
mental scheme  ever  devised  and  that  it  must  con- 
tinue forever,  was  held  to  be  axiomatic,  and  with 
few  exceptions  the  remedy  proposed  for  such  faults 
as  could  not  possibly  escape  detection  was  a  still 
further  extension  of  the  democratic  principle.  Even 
the  war  itself  was  held  to  be  "a  war  to  make  the 
world  safe  for  democracy."  It  is  significant  that 
the  form  in  which  this  saying  now  frequently  ap- 
pears is  one  in  which  the  word  "from"  is  substituted 
in  place  of  the  word  "for."  It  is  useless  to  blink 
the  fact  that  there  is  now  a  distrust  of  parliamentary 
and  representative  government  which  is  almost  uni- 
versal and  this  distrust,  which  is  becoming  wide- 
spread, reaches  from  the  Bolshevism  of  Russia  on 
the  one  hand,  through  many  intermediate  social  and 
intellectual  stages,  to  the  conservative  elements  in 
England  and  the  United  States,  and  the  fast- 
strengthening  royalist  "bloc"  in  France. 

In  many  unexpected  places  there  is  visible  a  pro- 
found sense  that  something  is  so  fundamentally 
wrong  that  palliatives  are  useless  and  some  drastic 
reform  is  necessary,  a  reform  that  may  almost 
amount  to  revolution.  Lord  Bryce  still  believes 
in  democracy  in  spite  of  his  keen  realizations  of  its 
grievous  defects,  because,  as  he  says,  hope  is  an  in- 
extinguishable quality  of  the  human  soul.  Mr. 
Chesterton  preaches  democracy  in  principle  while 
condemning  its  mechanism  and  its  workings  with 
his  accustomed  vigour;  the  Adamses  renounce  dem- 
ocracy and  all  its  works  while  offering  no  hint  as  to 
what  could  consistently  take  its  place  with  any  better 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         125 

chance  of  success,  while  the  royalists  excoriate  it  in 
unmeasured  terms  and  preach  an  explicit  return  to 
monarchy.  Meanwhile  international  Bolshevism, 
hating  the  thing  as  violently  as  do  kings  in  exile, 
substitutes  a  crude  and  venal  autocracy,  while  or- 
ganized labour,  as  a  whole,  works  for  the  day  when 
a  "class-conscious  proletariat"  will  have  taken  mat- 
ters into  its  own  hands  and  established  a  new  aristoc- 
racy of  privilege  in  which  the  present  working 
classes  will  hold  the  whip-hand.  Meanwhile  the 
more  educated  element  of  the  general  public  with- 
draws itself  more  and  more  from  political  affairs, 
going  its  own  way  and  making  the  best  of  a  bad 
job  it  thinks  itself  taught  by  experience  it  cannot 
mend. 

It  is  useless  to  deny  that  government,  in  the  char- 
acter of  its  personnel,  the  quality  of  its  output,  the 
standard  of  its  service  and  the  degree  of  its  ben- 
eficence has  been  steadily  deteriorating  during  the 
last  century  and  has  now  reached,  in  nearly  every 
civilized  country,  a  deplorably  low  level.  Popular 
representatives  are  less  and  less  men  of  character 
and  ability;  legislation  is  absurd  in  quantity,  short- 
sighted, frivolous,  inquisitorial,  and  in  a  large 
measure  prompted  by  selfish  interests;  administra- 
tion is  reckless,  wasteful  and  inefficient,  while  it  is 
overloaded  in  numbers,  without  any  particular  apti- 
tude on  the  part  of  its  members,  and  in  a  measure 
controlled  by  personal  or  corporate  interests.  The 
whole  system  is  in  bad  odour  for  it  is  shot  through 
and  through  with  the  greed  for  money  and  influence, 
while  the  cynicism  of  the  professional  politician  and 


126   TOWARDS   THE   GREAT   PEACE 

the  low  average  of  character,  intelligence  and  man- 
ners of  the  strata  of  society  that  increasingly  are 
usurping  all  power,  work  towards  producing  that 
general  contempt  and  aversion  that  have  become  so 
evident  of  late  and  that  are  a  menace  to  society  no 
less  than  that  of  the  decaying  institution  itself. 

Confronted  by  a  situation  such  as  this,  the  natural 
tendency  of  those  who  suffer  under  it,  either  in  their 
material  interests  or  their  ideals,  is  to  condemn  the 
mechanism,  perhaps  even  the  very  principles  for  the 
operation  of  which  the  various  machines  were  de- 
vised. Some  reject  the  whole  scheme  of  representa- 
tive, parliamentary  government,  and,  failing  any 
plausible  substitute,  are  driven  back  on  some  form 
of  the  soviet,  or  even  government  by  industrial 
groups.  Those  that  go  to  the  limit  and  reject  the 
whole  scheme  of  democracy  are  in  still  worse  plight 
for  they  have  no  alternative  to  offer  except  a  re- 
stored monarchy,  and  this,  the  terminus  ad  quern  of 
their  logic,  their  courage  will  not  permit  them  to 
avow. 

It  is  a  dilemma,  but  forced,  I  believe,  by  the  fatal 
passion  of  the  man  of  modernism  for  the  machine, 
the  mechanical  device,  the  material  equivalent  for 
a  thing  that  has  no  equivalent,  and  that  is  the  per- 
sonal character  of  the  constitutents  of  society  and 
the  working  factors  in  a  political  organism.  There 
was  never  a  more  foolish  saying  than  that  which 
is  so  frequently  and  so  boastfully  used:  "a  govern- 
ment of  laws  and  not  of  men."  This  is  the  exact  re- 
versal of  what  should  be  recognized  as  a  self-evident 
truth,  viz,  that  the  quality  of  the  men,  not  the  nature 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         I2y 

of  the  laws  or  of  the  administrative  machine,  is  the 
determining  factor  in  government.  You  may  take 
any  form  of  government  ever  devised  by  man,  mon- 
archy, aristocracy,  republic,  democracy,  yes,  or  sov- 
iet, and  if  the  community  in  which  this  government 
operates  has  a  working  majority  of  men  of  char- 
acter, intelligence  and  spiritual  energy,  it  will  be  a 
good  government,  whereas  if  the  working  majority 
is  deficient  in  these  characteristics,  or  if  it  makes 
itself  negligible  by  abstention  from  public  affairs 
it  will  be  a  bad  government.  There  is  no 
one  political  system  which  is  right  while  all  others 
are  wrong.  The  monarchy  of  St.  Louis  was  better 
than  the  Third  Republic,  as  this  is  better  than  was 
the  monarchy  of  Louis  XV.  The  aristocracy  of 
Washington  was  better  than  the  democracy  of  this 
year  of  grace,  as  this  in  itself  is  better  than  the  late 
junker  aristocracy  of  Prussia.  You  cannot  sub- 
stitute a  machine  in  place  of  character,  you  cannot 
supersede  life  by  a  theory. 

This  does  not  mean  that  the  form  of  government 
is  of  no  moment,  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  for 
I  cannot  too  often  insist  that  the  organic  life  of 
society  is  the  resultant  of  two  forces;  spiritual  en- 
ergy working  through  and  upon  the  material  forms 
towards  their  improvement  or — when  this  energy 
is  weak  or  distorted — their  degeneration;  the  mater- 
ial forms  acting  as  a  stimulus  towards  the  develop- 
ment of  spiritual  energy  through  association  and  en- 
vironment that  are  favourable,  or  towards  its  weak- 
ening and  distortion  when  these  are  deterrents  be- 
cause of  their  own  degraded  or  degrading  nature. 


128   TOWARDS  THE  GREAT  PEACE 

If  it  is  futile  to  look  for  salvation  through  the  mech- 
anism, it  is  equally  futile  to  try  to  act  directly  and 
exclusively  on  the  character  of  the  social  constituents 
in  the  patient  hope  that  their  defects  may  be  rem- 
edied, and  the  preponderance  of  character  of  high 
value  achieved,  before  catastrophe  overtakes  the 
experiment.  Life  is  as  sacramental  as  the  Christian 
religion  and  Christian  philosophy;  neither  the  spirit- 
ual substance  nor  the  material  accidents  can  oper- 
ate alone  but  only  in  a  conjunction  so  intimate  that 
it  is  to  all  intents  and  purposes — that  is,  for  the 
interests  and  purposes  of  God  in  human  life — a 
perfect  unity.  However  completely  and  even  pas- 
sionately we  may  realize  the  determining  factor  of 
spiritual  energy  as  this  manifests  itself  through  per- 
sonal character,  however  deeply  we  may  distrust  the 
machine,  we  are  bound  to  recognize  the  paramount 
necessity  of  the  active  interplay  of  both  within  the 
limits  of  life  as  we  know  it  on  the  earth,  and  there- 
fore it  is  very  much  our  concern  that  the  machine, 
whether  it  is  industrial,  political,  educational,  ec- 
clesiastical or  social,  is  as  perfect  in  its  nature  and 
stimulating  in  its  operations  as  we  are  able  to  com- 
pass. 

In  the  present  liquidation  of  values,  theories  and 
institutions  we  are  bound  therefore  to  scrutinize 
each  operating  agency  of  human  society,  to  see 
wherein  it  has  failed  and  how  it  can  be  bettered,  and 
the  problem  before  us  now  is  the  political  organism. 

Now  it  appears  that  in  the  past  there  have  been 
just  two  methods  whereby  a  civil  polity  has  come 
into  existence  and  established  itself  for  a  short  per- 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION 

iod  or  a  long.  These  two  methods  are,  first,  un- 
premeditated and  sometimes  unconscious  growth; 
second,  calculated  and  self-conscious  revolution.  The 
first  method  has  produced  communities,  states  and 
empires  that  frequently  worked  well  and  lasted  for 
long  periods;  the  second  has  had  issue  in  nothing 
that  has  endured  for  any  length  of  time  or  has  left 
a  record  of  beneficence.  Evolution  in  government 
13  in  accord  with  the  processes  of  life,  even  to  the 
extent  that  it  is  always  after  a  time  followed  by  de- 
generation; revolution  in  government  is  the  throw- 
ing of  a  monkey-wrench  into  the  machinery  by  a  dis- 
affected workman,  with  the  wrecking  of  the  machine, 
the  violent  stoppage  of  the  works,  and  frequently 
the  sudden  death  of  the  worker  as  a  consequence. 
The  English  monarchy  from  Duke  William  to 
Henry  VIII,  is  a  case  of  normal  growth  by  minor 
changes  and  modifications,  but  its  subsequent  history 
has  been  one  of  revolutions,  six  or  seven  having  oc- 
curred in  the  last  four  hundred  years;  the  scheme 
which  now  holds,  though  precariously,  is  the  result 
of  the  great  democratic  revolution  accomplished  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria.  The  free  monar- 
chies of  Europe  which  began  to  take  form  during 
the  long  period  of  the  Dark  Ages  and  pursued  their 
admirable  course  well  through  the  Middle  Ages, 
were  also  normal  and  slow  growths;  but  the  revolu- 
tions that  have  followed  the  Great  War  will  meet  a 
different  fate,  several  of  them,  indeed,  have  counted 
their  existence  in  months  and  have  already  passed 
into  history. 

If  we  are  wise  we  shall  discount  revolutions  for 


130      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

the  future,  for  nothing  but  ill  is  accomplished  by 
denying  life  and  exalting  the  ingenious  substitutes 
of  ambitious  and  presumptuous  Frankensteins;  the 
result  is  too  often  a  monster  that  works  cleverly  at 
first,  and  with  a  semblance  of  human  intelligence, 
but  in  the  end  shows  itself  as  a  destroyer.  Our  task 
is  to  envisage,  as  clearly  as  possible,  the  political 
systems  established  amongst  us,  note  their  weak- 
nesses either  in  themselves  or  in  their  relationship 
to  society  as  it  is,  and  then  try  to  find  those  remedies 
that  can  be  applied  without  any  violent  methods  of 
dislocation  or  substitution;  always  bearing  in  mind 
the  fact  that  the  energizing  force  that  will  make 
them  live,  preserve  them  from  deterioration,  and 
adapt  them  to  conditions  which  will  ever  change, 
is  the  spiritual  force  of  human  personality,  and  that 
this  force  comes  only  through  the  character  qual- 
ities of  the  individual  components  of  society. 

Now  in  considering  our  own  case  in  this  day  and 
generation  there  are  first  of  all  two  matters  to  be 
borne  in  mind.  One  is  that  we  shall  do  well  to  con- 
fine our  inquiry  to  the  United  States,  for  while  the 
defects  we  shall  have  to  point  out  are  common  to 
practically  all  the  contemporary  governments  of 
Europe  and  the  Americas,  our  own  enginery  is  dif- 
ferent in  certain  ways,  and  our  troubles  are  also 
different  between  one  example  and  another.  After 
all,  our  immediate  interest  must  lie  with  our  own 
national  problems.  The  other  point  is  that  in  crit- 
icising the  workings  of  government  in  America  we 
are  not  necessarily  criticising  its  founders  or  the 
creators  of  its  original  constitutions,  charters,  and 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         131 

other  mechanisms.  The  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  for  example,  was  conceived  to  meet  one  series 
of  perfectly  definite  conditions  that  have  now  been 
superseded  by  others  which  are  radically,  and  even 
diametrically  different.  The  original  Constitution 
was  a  most  able  instrument  of  organic  law,  but  just 
because  it  did  fit  so  perfectly  conditions  as  they  were 
four  generations  ago,  it  applies  but  indifferently  to 
present  circumstances,  and  even  less  well  than  the 
Founders  hoped  would  be  the  case;  for  the 
reason  that  the  amendments  which  were  provided 
for  have  seldom  taken  cognizance  of  these  chang- 
ing conditions,  and  even  when  this  was  done  the 
amendments  themselves  have  not  been  wisely  drawn, 
while  certain  of  them  have  been  actually  disastrous 
in  their  nature,  others  frivolous,  and  yet  more  the 
result  of  ephemeral  and  hysterical  ebulitions  of  an 
engineered  public  opinion.  The  same  may  be  said 
of  state  constitutions  and  municipal  charters,  which 
have  suffered  incessant  changes,  mostly  unfortunate 
and  ill-judged,  except  during  the  last  few  years, 
when  a  spirit  of  real  wisdom  and  constructiveness 
has  shown  itself,  though  sporadically  and  as  yet  with 
some  timidity.  The  reforms,  such  as  they  are,  are 
largely  in  the  line  of  palliatives;  the  deep-lying  fac- 
tors, those  that  control  both  success  and  failure,  are 
seldom  touched  upon.  The  necessary  courage — or 
perhaps  temerity — is  lacking.  What  is  needed  is 
such  a  clear  seeing  of  conditions,  and  such  an  ap- 
proach, as  manifested  themselves  in  the  Constitu- 
tional Convention  of  the  United  States,  for  in  spite 
of  the  many  compromises  that  were  in  the  end  nee- 


132   TOWARDS   THE   GREAT   PEACE 

essary  to  placate  a  public  opinion  not  untouched  by 
prejudice,  superstition  and  selfishness,  the  great 
document — and  even  more  the  records  of  the  de- 
bates— still  brilliantly  set  forth  both  the  clear-see- 
ing and  the  lofty  attitude  that  characterized  the  Con- 
vention. Had  these  men  been  gathered  together 
today,  even  the  same  men,  they  would  frame  a  very 
different  document,  for  they  took  conditions  and  men 
as  they  were,  and,  with  an  indestructible  hope  to 
glorify  their  common  sense,  they  produced  a  master- 
piece. It  is  in  the  same  spirit  that  we  must  ap- 
proach our  problem  of  today. 

Now  in  considering  the  situation  that  confronts 
us,  we  find  certain  respects  in  which  either  the 
methods  are  bad,  or  the  results,  or  both.  There  is 
no  unanimity  in  this  criticism,  indeed  I  doubt  if  any 
two  of  us  would  agree  on  all  the  items  in  the  indict- 
ment, though  we  all  might  unite  on  one  or  two.  I 
can  only  give  my  own  list  for  what  it  is  worth.  In 
the  first  place  we,  in  common  with  all  the  nations, 
have  drifted  into  imperialism  of  a  gross  scale  and  il- 
liberal, even  tyrannical  working.  We  could  hardly 
do  otherwise  for  such  has  been  the  universal  tend- 
ency for  more  than  an  hundred  years.  By  constant 
progression  municipal  governments  have  absorbed 
into  themselves  matters  that  in  decency,  and  with 
any  regard  for  liberty,  belong  to  the  individual. 
Simultaneously  our  state  governments  have  fol- 
lowed the  same  course,  infringing  even  on  the  just 
prerogatives  of  the  towns  and  cities,  while,  more 
than  all,  the  national  government  has  robbed  the 
states,  the  cities  and  the  citizens  of  what  should  be- 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         133 

long  to  them,  until  at  last  we  have  an  imperial, 
autocratic,  inquisitorial,  and  largely  irresponsible 
government  at  Washington  that  is  the  one  supreme 
political  fact;  we  are  no  longer  a  Federal  Republic 
but  an  Imperialism,  in  which  is  centralized  all  the 
authority  inherent  in  the  one  hundred  and  ten  mil- 
lions of  our  population  and  from  which  a  constantly 
diminishing  stream  of  what  is  practically  devolved 
authority,  trickles  down  through  state  and  city  to 
the  individual  in  the  last  instance — if  it  gets  there 
at  all!  This  I  believe  to  be  absolutely  and  fatally 
wrong.  In  the  first  place,  human  society  cannot 
function  at  this  abnormal  scale,  it  is  outside  the  hu- 
man scale,  for  in  spite  of  our  pride  and  insolence 
there  are  limits  on  every  hand  to  what  man  can  do. 
In  the  second  place,  I  conceive  it  to  be  absolutely  at 
variance  with  any  principle  of  republicanism  ori 
democracy  or  even  of  free  monarchy.  It  is  at  one 
only  with  the  imperialism  of  Egypt,  Babylon,  Rome 
and  the  late  Empire  of  Germany.  In  a  free  mon- 
archy, a  republic,  or  a  democracy,  the  pyramid  of 
political  organism  stands,  not  on  its  point  but  broad- 
based  and  four-square,  tapering  upward  to  its  final 
apex.  A  sane  and  wholesome  society  begins  with 
the  family — natural  or  artificial — which  has  original 
jurisdiction  over  a  far  greater  series  of  rights  and 
privileges  than  it  now  commands.  From  the  family 
certain  powers  are  delegated  to  the  next  higher 
social  unit,  the  village  or  communal  group,  which 
in  its  turn  concedes  certain  of  its  inherent  rights  to 
the  organic  group  of  communities,  or  states,  and 
finally  the  states  commit  to  the  last  and  general 


134   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT   PEACE 

authority,  the  national  government,  some  of  the 
elements  of  authority  that  have  been  delegated  to 
them.  The  principle  of  this  delegation  from  one 
organism  to  another,  is  common  interest  and  wel- 
fare; only  those  functions  which  can  be  performed 
with  more  even  justice  and  with  greater  effective- 
ness, by  the  community  for  example,  than  by  the 
family,  are  so  delegated.  In  the  same  way  the  sev- 
eral groups  commit  to  their  common  government 
only  so  much  as  they  cannot  perform  with  due  justice 
and  equity  to  the  others  in  the  same  group.  In  the 
end  the  national  government  exists  only  that  it  may 
provide  for  a  limited  number  of  national  necessities, 
as  for  example,  defence  against  extra-national  ag- 
gression, the  conduct  of  diplomatic  relations  with 
foreign  powers,  the  maintaining  of  a  national  cur- 
rency and  a  national  postal  service,  the  provision 
of  courts  of  last  resort,  and  the  raising  of  revenue 
for  the  support  of  these  few  and  explicit  functions. 

The  first  step,  it  seems  to  me,  towards  govern- 
mental reform,  is  decentralization,  with  a  return  to 
the  States,  the  civic  communities  and  the  individual 
citizens  of  nine-tenths  of  the  powers  and  the  pre- 
rogatives that  have  been  taken  from  them  in  de- 
fiance of  abstract  justice,  of  the  principles  of  free 
government  and  of  the  theory  of  the  workable  unit 
of  human  scale.  In  a  word  we  must  abandon  im- 
perialism and  all  its  works  and  go  back  to  the  Fed- 
eral Republic. 

The  second  cause  of  our  troubles  lies,  I  believe, 
in  the  institution  of  universal  suffrage  founded  on 
the  theory  (or  dogma)  that  the  electoral  franchise 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         135 

is  an  inalienable  right.  This  doctrine  is  of  recent 
invention,  only  coming  into  force  during  the  "re- 
construction period"  following  the  War  between  the 
States,  when  it  was  brought  forward  by  certain 
leaders  of  the  Republican  party  to  justify  their  en- 
franchisement of  the  negroes  in  the  hope  that  by 
this  act  they  could  fix  their  party  in  power  to  per- 
petuity. In  any  case,  the  plan  itself  has  worked 
badly,  both  for  the  community  and  for  many  of  the 
voters.  It  is  of  course  impossible  for  me  to  argue 
the  case  in  detail;  I  can  do  hardly  more  than  state 
my  own  personal  belief,  and  this  is  that  the  question 
is  wholly  one  of  expediency,  and  that  the  question  of 
abstract  justice  and  the  rights  of  man  does  not  enter 
into  the  consideration.  I  submit  that  the  electoral 
franchise  should  again  be  accepted  as  a  privilege  in- 
volving a  duty,  and  not  as  a  right  inherent  in  every 
adult  person  of  twenty-one  years  or  over  and  not 
lunatic  or  in  jail.  This  privilege,  which  in  itself 
should  confer  honour,  should  be  granted  to  those 
who  demonstrate  their  capacity  to  use  it  honestly 
and  intelligently,  and  taken  away  for  cause. 

The  acute  critic  will  not  be  slow  to  remind  me 
that  this  proposition  is  somewhat  beside  the  case 
and  that  it  possesses  but  an  academic  interest,  since 
we  are  dealing  with  a  fait  accompli.  This  is  of 
course  perfectly  true.  The  electoral  franchise  could 
be  so  restricted  only  by  the  suffrages  of  the  present 
electorate,  and  it  is  inconceivable  that  any  large  num- 
ber, and  far  less,  a  majority,  of  voters  would  even 
consider  the  proposition  for  a  moment.  For  good 
or  ill  we  have  unrestricted  adult  suffrage,  and  there 


136      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

is  not  the  faintest  chance  of  any  other  basis  being 
established  by  constitutional  means.  Something 
however  can  be  done,  and  this  is  a  thing  of  great 
value  and  importance.  What  I  suggest  is  concerted 
effort  towards  a  measured  purification  of  the  elector- 
ate through  the  penalizing  of  law-breakers  by  tem- 
porary disfranchisement.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to 
assume  that  a  man  who  deliberately  breaks  the  law 
is  constructively  unfit  to  vote  or  to  hold  office,  at 
all  events,  conviction  for  any  crime  or  misdemean- 
our gives  a  reasonable  ground  for  depriving  the  of- 
fender of  these  privileges,  at  least  for  a  time.  The 
law-breaking  element,  whether  it  is  millionaire  or 
proletarian,  is  one  of  the  dangerous  factors  in  so- 
ciety, which  would  lose  nothing  if  from  time  to  time 
these  gentry  were  removed  from  active  participation 
in  public  affairs.  If,  for  example,  any  one  convicted 
of  minor  offenses  punishable  by  fine  or  imprison- 
ment were  disfranchised  for  a  year,  if  of  major  of- 
fenses, for  varying  and  increasing  periods,  from 
five  years  upwards,  and  if  a  second  offense  during 
the  period  of  disfranchisement  worked  an  automatic 
doubling  of  the  time  prescribed  for  a  first  offense, 
I  conceive  that  the  electorate  would  be  measurably 
purified  and  that  regard  for  the  law  would  be  stim- 
ulated. In  one  instance  I  am  persuaded  that  dis- 
franchisement should  be  for  life,  and  that  is  in  the 
case  of  giving  or  accepting  a  bribe  or  otherwise 
committing  a  crime  against  the  ballot;  this,  together 
with  treason  against  the  state,  should  be  sufficient 
cause  for  eliminating  the  offender  from  all  further 
participation  in  public  affairs.  If  the  electorate 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         137 

could  be  purified  after  this  fashion,  and  if  more 
stringent  laws  could  be  passed  in  the  matter  of 
naturalization  of  aliens,  together  with  iron-clad  re- 
quirements that  every  voter  should  be  able  to  speak, 
read  and  write  the  English  language,  we  should  have 
achieved  something  towards  the  safeguarding  of 
the  suffrage. 

The  third  weakness  in  our  system,  and  in  some 
respect  the  most  dangerous,  as  it  is  in  all  respects 
the  most  pestiferous,  is  the  insanity  of  law-making. 
All  parliamentary  governments  suffer  from  this 
malady,  but  that  of  the  United  States  most  griev- 
ously, and  this  is  true  of  the  national  government,  the 
states  and  the  municipalities.  It  has  become  the 
conviction  of  legislative  bodies  that  they  must  just- 
ify their  existence  by  making  laws,  and  the  more  laws 
they  pass  the  better  they  have  discharged  their 
duties.  The  thing  has  become  a  scandal  and  an  op- 
pression, for  the  liberties  of  American  citizens  and 
the  just  prerogatives  of  the  states  and  the  cities,  as 
vital  human  groups,  have  been  more  infringed  upon, 
reduced,  and  degraded  by  free  legislation  than  ever 
happened  in  similar  communities  by  the  action  of  ab- 
solute monarchs.  It  is  a  folly  that  works  its  insid- 
ious injury  in  two  ways;  first  by  confusing  life  by 
innumerable  laws  ill-advised,  ill-drawn,  mutually 
contradictory,  ephemeral  in  their  nature,  inquisitor- 
ial in  their  workings;  second,  by  creating  a  condition 
where  any  personal  or  factious  interest  can  be  served 
by  due  process  of  law,  until  at  last  we  have  reached 
a  point  where  liberty  itself  has  largely  ceased  to 
exist  and  we  find  ourselves  crushed  under  a  tyranny 


138   TOWARDS  THE  GREAT  PEACE 

of  popular  government  no  less  oppressive  than  the 
tyranny  of  absolutism.  Nor  is  this  all;  the  mania 
for  making  laws  has  bred  a  complete  and  ingenious 
and  singularly  effective  system  of  getting  laws  made 
by  methods  familiar  to  the  members  of  all  legisla- 
tive bodies  whether  they  are  city  councils,  state 
legislatures  or  the  national  congress,  and  this  means 
opportunities  for  corruption,  and  methods  of  cor- 
ruption, that  are  fast  degrading  government  in  the 
United  States  to  a  point  where  there  is  none  so 
poor  as  to  do  it  reverence.  The  whole  system  is 
preposterous  and  absurd,  breeding  not  only  bad  laws, 
but  a  widespread  contempt  of  law,  while  the  per- 
sonal freedom  for  which  democracy  once  fought,  is 
fast  becoming  a  memory. 

The  trouble  began  as  a  result  of  one  of  the  ele- 
ments in  the  American  Constitution  which  was  the 
product  not  of  the  sound  common  sense  and  the  lofty 
judgment  of  the  framers,  but  of  a  weak  yielding 
to  one  of  the  doctrinaire  fads  of  the  time  that  had 
no  relationship  to  life  but  was  the  invention  of  po- 
litical theorists,  and  that  was  the  unnatural  separ- 
ation of  the  executive,  legislative  and  judicial 
functions  of  government.  The  error  has  worked 
far  and  the  superstition  still  holds.  What  is  needed 
is  an  initiative  in  legislation,  centred  in  one  respons- 
ible head  or  group,  that,  while  functioning  in  all 
normal  and  necessary  legislative  directions,  still  al- 
lows individual  initiative  on  the  part  of  the  legis- 
lators, as  a  supplementary,  or  corrective,  or  pro- 
tective agency.  No  government  functions  well  in 
fiscal  matters  without  a  budget:  what  we  need  in 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         139 

legislative  matters  is  a  legislative  budget,  and  by 
this  phrase,  I  mean  that  the  primary  agency  for  the 
proposing  of  laws  should  be  the  chief  executive  of 
a  city,  or  state  or  the  nation,  with  the  advice  and 
consent  of  his  heads  of  departments  who  would  form 
his  cabinet  or  council. 

Under  this  plan  the  Governor  and  Council,  for 
example,  would  at  the  opening  of  each  legislative 
session  present  a  programme  or  agenda  of  such 
laws  as  they  believed  the  conditions  to  demand,  and 
in  the  shape  of  bills  accurately  drawn  by  the  proper 
law  officer  of  the  government.  No  such  "govern- 
ment" bill  could  be  referred  to  committee  but  must 
be  discussed  in  open  session,  and  until  the  bills  so 
offered  had  been  passed  or  refused,  no  private  bill 
could  be  introduced.  A  procedure  such  as  this  would 
certainly  reduce  the  flood  of  private  bills  to  reason- 
able dimensions  while  it  would  insure  a  degree  of 
responsibility  now  utterly  lacking.  There  is  now  no 
way  in  which  the  author  of  a  foolish  or  dangerous 
bill  which  has  been  enacted  into  law  by  a  majority 
of  the  legislature,  can  be  held  to  account  and  due  re- 
sponsibility imposed  upon  him,  but  the  case  would 
be  very  different  if  a  mayor,  a  governor  or  the 
President  of  the  United  States  made  himself  re- 
sponsible for  a  law  or  a  series  of  laws,  by  offering 
them  for  action  in  his  own  name.  Certainly  if  this 
method  were  followed  we  should  be  preserved  in 
great  measure  from  the  hasty,  confused  and 
frivolous  legislation  that  at  present  makes  up  the 
major  part  of  the  output  of  our  various  legislative 
bodies.  One  of  the  greatest  gains  would  be  the 


1 40      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

reduction  of  the  annual  grist  to  a  size  where  each 
act  could  be  considered  and  debated  at  sufficient 
length  to  guarantee  as  reasonable  a  conclusion  as 
would  be  possible  to  the  members  of  the  legislative 
body.  The  deplorable  device  of  instituting  com- 
mittees, to  each  of  which  certain  bunches  of  bills  are 
referred  before  they  are  permitted  to  come  before 
the  house,  would  be  no  longer  necessary.  This 
system,  which  became  necessary  in  order  to  deal 
with  the  enormous  mass  of  undigested  matter  which 
has  overwhelmed  every  legislature  as  a  result  of  the 
present  chaotic  and  irresponsible  procedure,  is  per- 
haps both  the  most  undemocratic  device  ever  put  in 
practice  by  a  democracy,  and  the  most  fruitful  of 
venality,  corruption  and  injustice.  It  is  unnecessary 
to  labour  this  point  for  everyone  knows  its  grave 
evils,  but  there  seems  no  way  to  get  rid  of  it  unless 
some  curb  is  placed  on  the  number  of  bills  introduced 
in  any  session.  The  British  Parliament  is  not  neces- 
sarily a  model  of  intelligent  or  capable  procedure, 
but  where  in  one  session  at  Westminster  no  more 
than  four  hundred  bills  were  introduced,  at  Wash- 
ington, for  the  same  period,  the  count  ran  well  over 
twelve  thousand!  Manifestly  some  committee 
system  is  inevitable  under  conditions  such  as  this, 
but  under  the  committee  system  free  government 
and  honest  legislation  are  difficult  of  attainment. 

One  would  not  of  course  prevent  the  proposal  of 
a  bill  by  any  member  of  the  legislature,  indeed  this 
free  action  would  be  absolutely  necessary  as  a  meas- 
ure of  protection  against  executive  oppression,  but 
this  should  be  prohibited  until  after  the  government 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         141 

programme  had  been  disposed  of.  After  that  task 
was  accomplished  the  legislature  might  sit  indef- 
initely, or  as  long  as  the  public  would  stand  it,  for 
the  purpose  of  considering  private  bills,  and  these 
could  be  referred  to  committees  as  at  present. 
The  chances  are,  however,  that  the  government  pro- 
gramme would  cover  the  most  essential  matters  and 
what  would  remain  would  be  the  edifying  spectacle 
of  Solons  solemnly  considering  such  questions  as  the 
minimum  length  of  sheets  on  hotel  beds,  the  limi- 
tation in  inches  and  fractions,  of  the  heels  of  wo- 
men's shoes,  the  amount  of  flesh  that  could  be  legal- 
ly exposed  by  a  bathing  suit,  or  the  pensioning  of  a 
Swedish  Assistant  Janitor, — all  of  which  are  the 
substance  of  actual  bills  introduced  in  various  State 
legislatures  during  the  session  last  closed. 

Another  grave  weakness  in  our  system  is  the  elec- 
tion by  popular  vote  of  many  judicial  and  admin- 
istrative officers,  coupled  with  the  vigorous  remnants 
of  the  old  and  degrading  "spoils  system"  whereby 
many  thousands  of  strictly  non-political  offices  are 
almost  automatically  vacated  after  any-  partisan 
victory.  I  cannot  trust  myself  to  speak  of  the  in- 
famy of  an  elective  judiciary;  fortunately  I  live  in 
a  state  where  this  worst  abuse  of  democratic  prac- 
tice does  not  exist,  and  so  it  touches  me  only  in  so 
far  as  it  offends  the  sense  of  decency  and  justice.  In 
the  other  cases  it  is  only  a  question  of  efficient  and 
intelligent  administration.  There  is  an  argument 
for  electing  the  chief  executive  of  a  city,  a  state  or  the 
nation,  by  popular  vote,  and  the  same  holds  in  the 
case  of  the  lower  house  of  the  legislature  where  a 


142   TOWARDS   THE   GREAT   PEACE 

bi-cameral  system  exists,  but  there  is  no  argument 
for  the  popular  election  of  the  administrative  of- 
ficers of  a  state.  There  is  even  less, — if  there  can 
be  less  than  nothing — for  the  changes  in  personnel 
that  take  place  after  every  election.  Civil  service 
reform  has  done  a  world  of  good,  but  as  yet  it  has 
not  gone  far  enough  in  some  directions,  while  its 
mechanism  of  examinations  is  defective  in  principle 
in  that  it  leaves  out  the  personal  equation  and  es- 
tablishes its  tests  only  along  a  very  few  of  the  many 
lines  that  actually  exist.  I  would  offer  it  as  a  prop- 
osition that  no  election  should  in  itself  affect  the 
status  of  any  man  except  the  man  elected,  and,  in 
the  case  of  a  mayor  or  governor  or  the  President, 
those  who  are  directly  responsible  to  him  and  to  his 
administration  for  carrying  out  his  policies;  and 
further,  that  the  voter,  when  he  votes,  should  vote 
once  and  for  one  man  in  his  city,  once  and  for  one 
man  in  his  state,  and  once  and  for  one  man  in  the 
nation,  and  that  man,  in  each  case,  should  be  his 
representative  in  the  lower  branch  of  the  legislative 
body.  Choosing  administrative  officials  by  majority 
vote,  and  the  election  of  judges  for  short  terms  by 
the  same  method,  are  absurdities  of  a  system  fast 
falling  into  chaos.  The  maintenance  of  a  bi-cameral 
legislative  organization,  with  the  choosing  of  the 
members  of  both  houses  by  the  same  electorate  is  in 
the  same  class,  a  perfectly  irrational  anomaly  which 
violates  the  first  principles  of  logic  and  leads  only  to 
legislative  incompetence,  and  worse.  The  referen- 
dum is  of  precisely  the  same  nature,  but  this  already 
has  become  a  reductio  ad  absurdum,  and  can  hardly 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         143 

survive  the  discredit  into  which  it  has  fallen.  In  any 
reorganization  of  government  looking  towards  bet- 
ter results,  these  elements  must  disappear. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  government  has  come  to  oc- 
cupy altogether  too  large  a  place  in  our  conscious- 
ness; naturally,  for  it  has  come  to  a  point  where 
it  pursues  us — and  overtakes  us — at  every  turn. 
Democracies  always  govern  too  much,  that  is  one 
of  their  great  weaknesses.  Elections,  law-making, 
and  getting  and  holding  office,  have  become  an  ob- 
session and  they  shadow  our  days.  So  insistent  and 
incessant  are  the  demands,  so  artificial  and  unreal 
the  issues,  so  barren  of  vital  results  all  this  pande- 
monium of  partisanship  and  change,  the  more  intel- 
ligent and  scrupulous  are  losing  interest  in  the 
whole  affair,  and  while  they  increasingly  withdraw  to 
matters  of  a  greater  degree  of  reality  those  who 
subsist  on  the  proceeds  gain  the  power,  and  hold  it. 
At  the  very  moment  when  the  women  of  the  United 
States  have  been  given  the  vote,  there  are  many  men 
(and  women  also)  who  begin  to  think  that  the  vote 
is  a  very  empty  institution  and  in  itself  practically 
void  of  power  to  effect  anything  of  really  vital 
moment.  I  am  not  now  defending  this  position,  I 
only  assert  that  it  exists,  and  I  believe  it  is  due  to 
the  degradation  of  government  through  the  very 
modifications  and  transformations  that  have  been 
effected,  since  the  time  of  Andrew  Jackson,  in  a 
perfectly  honest  attempt  at  improvement. 

The  best  government  is  that  which  does  the  least, 
which  leaves  local  matters  in  the  hands  of  localities, 
and  personal  matters  in  the  hands  of  persons,  and 


1 44      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

which  is  modestly  inconspicuous.  Good  government 
establishes,  or  recognizes,  conditions  which  are  sta- 
ble, reliable,  and  that  may  be  counted  on  for  more 
than  two  years,  or  four  years,  at  a  time.  It  has 
continuity,  it  preserves  tradition,  and  it  follows  cus- 
tom and  common  law.  Such  a  government  is  neither 
hectic  in  its  vicissitudes  nor  inquisitorial  in  its  enact- 
ments. It  is  cautious  in  its  expenditures,  efficient  in 
its  administration,  proud  in  maintaining  its  stand- 
ards of  honour,  justice  and  "noblesse  oblige."  Good 
government  is  august  and  handsome;  it  surrounds 
itself  with  dignity  and  ceremony,  even  at  times  with 
splendour  and  pageantry,  for  these  things  are  signs 
of  self-respect  and  the  outward  showing  of  high 
ideals — or  may  be  made  so;  that  is  what  good  man- 
ners and  ceremony  and  beauty  are  for.  Finally, 
good  government  is  where  the  laws  of  Christian 
morals  and  courtesy  and  charity  that  are  supposed 
to  hold  between  Christian  men  hold  equally,  even 
more  forcefully,  in  public  relations  both  domestic 
and  foreign.  Where  government  of  this  nature  ex- 
ists, whether  the  form  is  monarchical,  republican  or 
democratic,  there  is  liberty;  where  these  conditions 
do  not  obtain  the  form  matters  not  at  all,  for  there 
is  a  servile  state. 

At  the  risk  of  being  tedious  I  will  try  to  sketch 
the  rough  outlines  of  what,  in  substance,  I  believe 
to  be  that  form  of  civil  polity  which,  based  on  what 
now  exists,  changes  only  along  lines  that  would 
perhaps  tend  towards  establishing  and  maintaining 
those  ideals  of  liberty,  order  and  justice  which  have 
always  been  the  common  aim  of  those  who  have 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         145 

striven  to  reform  a  condition  of  things  where  they 
were  attained  indifferently  or  not  at  all. 

The  primary  and  effective  social  and  political  unit 
is  the  "vill"  or  commune;  that  is  to  say,  a  group  of 
families  and  individuals  living  in  one  neighbourhood, 
and  of  a  size  that  would  permit  all  the  members  to 
know  one  another  if  they  wished  to  do  so,  and  also 
the  coming  together  of  all  those  holding  the  elec- 
toral franchise,  for  common  discussion  and  action. 
The  average  American  country  town,  uninvaded  by 
industrialism,  is  the  natural  type,  for  here  the 
"town  meeting"  of  our  forefathers  is  practicable, 
and  this  remains  the  everlasting  frame  and  model 
of  self-government.  In  the  case  of  a  city  the  prim- 
ary unit  would  be  of  approximately  the  same  size, 
and  the  entire  municipality  would  be  divided  into 
wards  each  containing,  say,  about  five  hundred 
voters.  These  primary  units  would  possess  a  real 
unity  and  a  very  large  measure  of  autonomy,  but 
they  would  be  federated  for  certain  common  pur- 
poses which  would  vary  in  number  and  importance 
in  proportion  to  the  closeness  of  their  common  in- 
terests, from  the  county,  made  up  of  a  number  of 
small  villages,  to  the  city  which  would  comprise  as 
many  wards  as  might  be  numerically  necessary,  and 
whose  central  government  would  administer  a  great 
many  more  affairs  than  would  the  county.  The  city 
would  be  in  effect  a  federation  of  the  wards  or 
boroughs. 

The  individual  voter  would  exercise  his  electoral 
franchise  and  perform  his  political  duties  only  with- 
in the  primary  unit  (the  township  or  ward)  where 


146   TOWARDS   THE   GREAT   PEACE 

he  had  legal  residence.  At  an  annual  "town  meet- 
ing" he  would  vote  for  the  "selectmen"  or  the  ward 
council  who  would  have  in  charge  the  local  interests 
of  the  primary  unit,  which  would  be  comprehensive 
in  the  case  of  a  township,  necessarily  more  limited 
in  the  case  of  a  ward.  These  local  boards  would 
elect  their  own  chairmen  who  would  also  form  the 
legislative  body  of  the  county  or  the  municipality. 
At  the  same  town  meeting  the  voter  would  cast  his 
ballot  for  a  representative  in  the  lower  legislative 
body  of  the  state.  In  the  smaller  commonwealths 
each  township  or  ward  would  elect  its  own  repre- 
sentative, but  in  states  of  excessive  population  repre- 
sentation would  have  to  be  on  the  basis  of  counties 
and  municipalities,  for  no  legislative  body  should 
contain  more  than  a  very  few  hundred  members. 
Nominations  in  the  town  meeting  should  be  viva 
voce,  elections  by  secret  ballot.  Legislation  should 
be  primarily  on  the  initiative  of  the  selectmen  or 
ward  council,  and  voting  should  be  viva  voce.  With 
the  exercise  of  his  privilege  of  speaking  and  voting 
at  the  meetings  of  his  primary  unit,  the  direct  politi- 
cal action  of  the  citizen  would  cease. 

The  secondary  unit  would  be  the  county  or  the 
city.  Here  the  legislative  body  would  consist  of 
the  presiding  officers  of  the  township  or  ward  gov- 
ernments. The  sheriff  of  a  county  or  the  mayor  of 
a  city  would  be  chosen  by  these  legislative  bodies 
from  their  own  number  and  should  hold  office  for 
a  term  of  several  years,  while  the  local  governments, 
and  therefore  the  legislative  bodies  of  the  county  or 
the  city,  would  be  chosen  annually.  The  chief  execu- 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         147 

tive  of  a  county  or  city  would  appoint  all  heads  of 
departments  who  would  form  his  advisory  council, 
and  he  would  also  frame  and  submit  annually  both 
a  fiscal  and  a  legislative  budget. 

The  tertiary  unit  is  the  state,  which  is  a  federation 
of  the  counties  and  cities  forming  some  one  of  the 
historic  divisions  of  the  United  States.  The  legisla- 
ture would  as  now  be  composed  of  two  chambers,  one 
made  up  of  representatives  of  the  primary  units, 
holding  office  for  a  brief  term,  and  a  second  repre- 
senting the  secondary  units  and  chosen  by  their 
governing  bodies  for  a  long  term.  The  logic  of  a 
bi-cameral  system  demands  that  the  lower  house 
should  represent  the  changing  will  of  the  people, 
the  upper,  in  so  far  as  possible,  its  cumulative  wis- 
dom and  the  continuity  of  tradition,  while,  as  already 
stated,  the  whole  principle  is  vitiated  if  both  houses 
are  chosen  by  the  same  electorate.  The  chief  execu- 
tive should  be  chosen  by  the  legislative  chambers  in 
joint  session,  from  a  panel  made  up  of  their  own 
membership  and  the  heads  of  the  county  and  city 
governments.  He  should  hold  office  for  a  long 
term,  preferably  for  an  indeterminate  period  con- 
tingent on  "good  behaviour."  In  this  case  his  cabi- 
net, or  council  of  the  heads  of  departments,  would  of 
course  be  responsible  to  the  legislature  and  would 
resign  on  a  formal  vote  of  censure  or  "lack  of  con- 
fidence." The  Governor  would  have  the  same 
power  of  appointment,  and  the  same  authority  to 
present  fiscal  and  legislative  budgets  as  already 
specified  in  the  case  of  a  mayor  of  a  city.  No  "com- 
missions," unpaid  or  otherwise,  should  be  permitted, 


148      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

all  the  administrative  functions  of  government  be- 
ing performed  by  the  various  departments  and  their 
subordinate  bureaux. 

The  national  government  is  the  final  social  and 
political  unit,  though  it  is  conceivable  that  with  a 
territory  and  population  as  great  and  diversified  as 
that  of  the  United  States,  and  bearing  in  mind  the 
great  discrepancy  in  size  between  the  states,  some- 
thing might  be  gained  by  the  institution  of  a  system 
of  provinces,  some  five  or  six  in  all,  made  up  of 
states  grouped  in  accordance  with  their  general  com- 
munity of  interests,  as  for  example,  all  New  Eng- 
land, New  York,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey  and 
Delaware;  the  states  of  the  old  Confederacy,  those 
of  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  so  on.  The  point  need  not 
be  pressed  here,  but  there  are  considerations  in  its 
favour.  In  any  case  the  nation  as  a  whole  is  the  final 
federal  unit.  Here  the  lower  legislative  house 
would  consist  of  not  more  than  four  hundred  mem- 
bers, allocated  on  a  basis  of  population  and  elected 
by  the  representative  bodies  of  the  primary  units 
(the  townships  and  city  wards)  as  already  de- 
scribed. The  members  of  the  upper  house  would 
be  elected  by  the  legislative  bodies  of  the  several 
states  on  nomination  by  the  Governor.  The  chief 
executive  of  the  nation  would  be  chosen  by  the  two 
legislative  bodies,  in  joint  session,  from  amongst  the 
then  governors  of  the  several  states.  He  should 
certainly  hold  office  for  "good  behaviour,"  and  his 
cabinet  would  be  responsible  to  the  legislature  as 
provided  for  in  the  case  of  the  state  governments. 

I  do  not  offer  this  programme  with  any  pride  of 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         149 

paternity;  probably  it  would  not  work  very  well, 
but  it  could  hardly  prove  less  efficacious  than  our 
present  system  under  conditions  as  they  have  come 
to  be.  This  cannot  continue  indefinitely,  for  it  is  so 
hopelessly  defective  that  it  is  bound  to  bring  about 
its  own  ruin,  with  the  probable  substitution  of  some 
doctrinaire  device  engendered  by  the  natural  revolt 
against  an  intolerable  abuse.  If  only  we  could  see 
conditions  clearly  and  estimate  them  at  something 
approaching  their  real  value,  we  should  rapidly  de- 
velop a  constructive  public  opinion  that,  even  though 
it  represented  a  minority,  might  by  the  very  force 
behind  it  compel  the  majority  to  acquiesce  in  a  radi- 
cal reformation.  Unfortunately  we  do  not  do  this, 
we  are  hypnotized  by  phrases  and  deluded  by  vain 
theories,  as  Mr.  Chesterton  says: 

"So  drugged  and  deadened  is  the  public  mind  by 
the  conventional  public  utterances,  so  accustomed 
have  we  grown  to  public  men  talking  this  sort  of 
pompous  nonsense  and  no  other,  that  we  are  some- 
times quite  shocked  by  the  revelation  of  what  men 
really  think,  or  else  of  what  they  really  say." 

We  do,  now  and  then,  confess  that  legislation  is  as 
a  whole  foolish,  frivolous  and  opportunist;  that  ad- 
ministration is  wasteful,  incompetent  and  frequently 
venal;  that  the  governmental  personnel,  legislative, 
administrative  and  executive,  is  of  a  low  order  in 
point  of  character,  intelligence  and  culture — and 
tending  lower  each  day.  We  admit  this,  for  the 
evidence  is  so  conspicuous  that  to  deny  it  would  be 
hypocrisy,  but  something  holds  us  back  from  recog- 
nizing the  nexus  between  effect  and  cause.  Unre- 


150   TOWARDS  THE  GREAT  PEACE 

stricted  immigration,  universal  suffrage,  rotation  in 
office,  the  subjection  of  many  offices  and  measures  to 
popular  vote,  the  parliamentary  system,  government 
by  political  parties — all  these  customs  and  habits 
into  which  we  have  fallen  have  arrived  at  failure 
which  presages  disaster.  They  have  failed  because 
the  character  of  the  people  that  functioned  through 
these  various  engines  had  failed,  diluted  by  the  low 
mentality  and  character-content  of  millions  of 
immigrants  and  their  offspring,  degraded  by  the  false 
values  and  vicious  standards  imposed  by  industrial 
civilization,  foot-loose  from  all  binding  and  control 
of  a  vital  and  potent  religious  impulse  or  religious 
organism. 

It  is  the  old,  vicious  circle;  spiritual  energy  de- 
clines or  is  diverted  into  wrong  channels;  thereupon 
the  physical  forms,  social,  industrial,  political,  slip 
a  degree  or  two  lower  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
failing  energy,  and  these  in  their  turn  exert  a  de- 
grading influence  on  the  waning  spiritual  force, 
which  declines  still  further  only  to  be  pulled  lower 
still  by  the  material  agencies  which  continue  their 
progressive  declension.  Theories,  no  matter  how 
high-minded  and  altruistic,  cannot  stand  before  a 
condition  such  as  this,  for  self-protection  decrees 
otherwise  even  if  the  higher  motive  of  doing  right 
things  and  getting  right  things  just  because  they  are 
right,  does  not  come  into  effective  operation.  The 
evil  results  of  the  institutions  I  have  catalogued 
above  are  not  to  be  denied,  and  the  institutions 
themselves  must  be  reformed  or  altogether  aban- 
doned, in  the  face  of  the  loud-mouthed  exhortations 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION 

of  those  who  now  make  them  their  means  of  liveli- 
hood, and  even  at  the  expense  of  the  honest  up- 
holders of  theories  and  doctrines  that  do  credit  to 
their  humanitarianism  but  have  been  weighed  and 
found  wanting. 

I  am  anxious  not  to  put  this  plan  for  the  reform, 
in  root  and  branch,  of  our  political  institutions,  on 
the  low  level  of  mere  caution  and  self-defense. 
The  motive  power  of  this  is  fear,  and  fear  is  only 
second  to  hate  in  its  present  position  as  a  controlling 
force  in  society.  We  should  have  good  government 
not  because  it  is  economical  and  ensures  what  are 
known  as  "good  business  conditions,"  and  promises 
a  peaceful  continuance  of  society,  but  because  it  is 
as  worthy  an  object  of  creative  endeavour  as  noble 
art  or  a  great  literature  or  a  just  and  merciful  eco- 
nomic system,  or  a  life  that  is  full  of  joy  and  beauty 
and  wholesome  labour.  The  political  organism  is 
in  a  sense  the  microcosm  of  life  itself,  and  it  should 
be  society  lifted  up  to  a  level  of  dignity,  majesty 
and  nobility.  The  doctrine  that  in  a  democracy  the 
government  must  exactly  express  the  numerical  pre- 
ponderance in  the  social  synthesis,  and  that,  if  this 
happens  to  be  ignorant,  mannerless  and  corrupt, 
then  the  government  must  be  after  the  same  fashion, 
is  a  low  and  a  cowardly  doctrine.  Government 
should  be  better  than  the  majority;  better  than  the 
minority  if  this  has  advantage  over  the  other.  It 
should  be  of  the  best  that  man  can  compass,  resting 
above  him  as  in  some  sort  an  ideal;  the  visible 
expression  of  his  better  self,  and  the  better  self  of 
the  society  of  which  he  is  a  part.  If  a  political 


152      TOWARDS      THE      GREAT      PEACE 

system,  any  political  system,  produces  any  other  re- 
sult; if  it  has  issue  in  a  representation  of  the  lowest 
and  basest  in  society,  or  even  of  the  general  aver- 
age, then  it  is  a  bad  system  and  it  must  be  redeemed 
or  it  will  bring  an  end  that  is  couched  in  terms  of 
catastrophe. 

Reform  is  difficult,  perhaps  even  impossible  of 
attainment  under  the  existing  system  where  univer- 
sal, unlimited  suffrage  and  the  party  system  are 
firmly  intrenched  as  opponents  of  vital  reform,  and 
where  representation  and  legislation  take  their  in- 
delible colour  from  these  unfortunate  institutions. 
It  must  freely  be  admitted  that  there  is  no  chance 
of  eliminating  or  recasting  either  one  or  the  other 
by  the  recognized  methods  of  platform  support  and 
mass  action  through  the  ballot.  It  comes  in  the 
end  to  a  change  of  viewpoint  and  of  heart  on  the 
part  of  the  individual.  No  party,  no  political  leader 
would  for  a  moment  endorse  any  one  of  the  princi- 
ples or  methods  I  have  suggested,  for  this  would  be 
a  suicidal  act.  The  newspaper,  irresponsible,  anony- 
mous, directed  by  its  advertizing  interests  or  by 
those  more  sinister  still,  yet  for  all  that  the  factor 
that  controls  the  opinions  of  those  who  hold  the 
balance  of  power  in  the  community  as  it  is  now 
constituted,  would  reject  them  with  derision,  while 
in  themselves  they  are  radically  opposed  to  the 
personal  interests  of  the  majority.  The  only  hope 
of  lifting  government  to  the  level  of  dignity  and 
capacity  it  should  hold,  lies  in  the  individual.  It  is 
necessary  that  we  should  see  things  clearly,  estimate 
conditions  as  they  are,  and  think  through  to  the  end. 


THE    POLITICAL    ORGANIZATION         153 

We  do  not  do  this.  We  admit,  in  a  dull  sort  of  way, 
that  matters  are  not  as  they  should  be,  that  legisla- 
tion is  generally  silly  and  oppressive,  that  taxation 
is  excessive,  that  administration  is  wasteful  and  reck- 
less and  incompetent,  for  we  know  these  things  by 
experience.  We  accept  them,  however,  with  our  na- 
tional good-nature  and  easy  tolerance,  assuming 
that  they  are  inseparable  from  democratic  govern- 
ment— as  indeed  they  are,  but  not  for  a  moment 
does  any  large  number  think  of  questioning  the 
principle,  or  even  the  system,  that  must  take  the 
responsibility.  When  disgust  and  indifference  reach 
a  certain  point  we  stop  voting,  that  is  all.  At  the 
last  presidential  election  less  than  one  half  the 
qualified  voters  took  the  trouble  to  cast  their  bal- 
lots, while  in  Boston  (which  is  no  exception)  it  gener- 
ally happens  that  at  a  municipal  elections  the  ballots 
cast  are  less  than  one-third  the  total  electorate. 
I  wonder  how  many  there  are  here  today  who  have 
ever  been  to  a  ward  meeting,  or  have  sat  through  a 
legislative  session  of  a  city  government,  as  of  Bos- 
ton for  example,  or  have  listened  to  the  debates  in  a 
state  house  of  representatives,  or  analyzed  the  annual 
grist  of  legislative  bills,  or  have  sat  for  an  hour  or 
two  in  the  Senate  or  House  at  Washington.  Such  an 
experience  is,  I  assure  you,  illuminating,  for  it  shows 
exactly  why  popular  government  is  what  it  is,  while 
it  forms  an  admirable  basis  for  a  constructive  re- 
vision of  judgment  as  to  the  soundness  of  accepted 
principles  and  the  validity  of  accepted  methods. 

Our  political  attitude  today  is  based  on  an  inher- 
ited and  automatic  acceptance  of  certain  perfectly 


154   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT   PEACE 

automatic  formulae.  We  neither  see  things  clearly, 
estimate  conditions  as  they  are,  nor  think  a  proposi- 
tion through  to  the  end:  we  are  obsessed  by  old 
formulae,  partisan  "slogans"  and  newspaper  aphor- 
isms; the  which  is  both  unworthy  and  perilous.  Let 
us  see  things  clearly  for  a  moment;  if  we  do  this 
anything  is  possible,  no  matter  how  idealistic  and 
apparently  impracticable  it  may  be.  Is  there  any 
one  who  would  confess  that  character  and  intelli- 
gence are  now  a  helpless  minority  in  this  nation? 
Such  an  admission  would  be  almost  constructive 
treason.  The  instinct  of  the  majority  is  right,  but 
it  is  defective  in  will  and  it  is  subservient  to  base 
leadership,  while  its  power  for  good  is  negatived 
by  the  persistence  of  a  mass  of  formulas  that,  under 
radically  changed  conditions,  have  ceased  to  be 
beneficient,  or  even  true,  and  have  become  a  clog  and 
a  stumbling  block. 

I  may  not  have  indicated  better  ideals  or  sounder 
methods  of  operation,  but  the  true  ideals  exist  and 
it  is  not  beyond  our  ability  to  discover  a  better 
working  system.  Partisanship  cannot  reveal  either 
one  or  the  other,  nor  are  they  the  fruit  of  organi- 
zation or  the  attribute  of  political  leadership.  They 
belong  to  the  common  citizen,  to  you,  to  the  indi- 
vidual, and  if  once  superstition  is  cast  out  and  we 
fall  back  on  right  reason  and  the  eternal  principles 
of  the  Christian  ethic  and  the  Christian  ideal,  we 
shall  not  find  them  difficult  of  attainment;  and  once 
attained  they  can  be  put  in  practice,  for  the  ill  thing 
exists  only  on  sufferance,  the  right  thing  establishes 
itself  by  force  of  its  very  quality  of  right. 


VI 

THE  FUNCTION  OF  EDUCATION 
AND  ART 

TXT'HEN,  as  on  occasion  happens,  some  hostile 
criticism  is  leveled  against  the  civilization  of 
modernism,  or  against  some  one  of  its  many  details, 
the  reply  is  ready,  and  the  faultfinder  is  told  that  the 
defect,  if  it  exists,  will  in  the  end  be  obviated  by  the 
processes  of  popular  education.  Pressed  for  more 
explicit  details  as  to  just  what  may  be  the  nature  of 
this  omnipotent  and  sovereign  "education,"  the  many 
champions  give  various  answer,  depending  more  or 
less  on  the  point  of  view  and  the  peculiar  predilec- 
tions of  each,  but  the  general  principles  are  the  same. 
Education,  they  say,  consist  of  two  things;  the  for- 
mal practice  and  training  of  the  schools,  and  the 
experience  that  comes  through  the  use  of  certain 
public  rights  and  privileges,  such  as  the  ballot,  the 
holding  of  office,  service  on  juries,  and  through  vari- 
ous experiences  of  the  practice  of  life  ,as  the  read- 
ing of  newspapers  (and  perhaps  books),  the  activi- 
ties of  work,  business  and  the  professions,  and  per- 
sonal association  with  other  men  in  social,  craft,  and 
professional  clubs  and  other  organizations. 

With  the  second  category  of  education  through 
experience  we  need  not  deal  at  this  time;  it  is  a  ques- 
tion by  itself  and  of  no  mean  quality;  the  matter 
I  would  consider  is  the  more  formal  and  narrow  one 

155 


156      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

of  scholastic  training  in  so  far  as  it  bears  on  the 
Great  Peace  that,  though  perhaps  after  many  days, 
must  follow  the  Great  War  and  the  little  peace. 

Answering  along  this  line,  the  protagonists  of 
salvation  through  education  pretty  well  agree  that 
the  thing  itself  means  the  widest  possible  extension 
of  our  public  school  system,  with  free  state  univer- 
sities and  technical  schools,  and  the  extension  of  the 
educational  period,  with  laws  so  rigid,  and  enforce- 
ment so  pervasive  and  impartial,  that  no  child  be- 
tween the  ages  of  six  and  sixteen  can  possibly  escape. 
This  free,  compulsory  and  universal  education  is  as- 
sumed to  be  scrupulously  secular  and  hedged  about 
with  every  safeguard  against  the  insidious  encroach- 
ments of  religion;  it  will  aim  to  give  a  little  training 
in  most  of  the  sciences,  and  much  in  the  practical 
necessities  of  business  life,  as  for  example,  stenog- 
raphy, book-keeping,  advertising  and  business 
science;  it  will  cover  a  broad  field  of  manual  train- 
ing leading  to  "graduate  courses"  in  special  tech- 
nical schools;  the  "laboratory  method"  and  "field 
practice"  will  be  increasingly  developed  and  applied; 
Latin,  Greek,  logic  and  ancient  history  will  be  min- 
imized or  done  away  with  altogether,  and  modern 
languages,  applied  psychology  and  contemporary  his- 
tory will  be  correspondingly  emphasized.  As  for 
the  state  university,  it  will  allow  the  widest  range 
of  free  electives,  and  as  an  university  it  will  aim  to 
comprise  within  itself  every  possible  department  of 
practical  activity,  such  as  business  administration, 
journalism,  banking  and  finance,  foreign  trade,  polit- 
ical science,  psycho-analysis,  mining,  sanitary  engi- 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  157 

neering,  veterinary  surgery,  as  well  as  law,  medicine, 
agriculture,  and  civil  and  mechanical  engineering.  I 
am  curious  to  inquire  at  this  time  if  education  such 
as  this  does,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  educate,  and  how 
far  it  my  be  relied  upon  as  a  corrective  for  present 
defects  in  society;  or  rather,  first  of  all,  whether 
education  of  this,  or  of  any  sort,  may  be  looked  on 
as  a  sufficient  saving  force,  and  whether  general 
education,  instead  of  being  extended  should  not  be 
curtailed,  or  rather  safeguarded  and  restricted. 

I  have  already  tried  to  indicate,  in  my  lecture  on 
the  Social  Organism,  certain  doubts  that  are  now 
arising  as  to  the  prophylactic  and  regenerative  pow- 
ers of  education,  whether  this  is  based  on  the  old 
foundation  of  the  Trivium  and  Quadrivium  under 
the  supreme  dominion  of  Theology,  or  on  the  new 
foundation  of  utilitarianism  and  applied  science 
under  the  dominion  of  scientific  pedagogy.  While 
the  active-minded  portion  of  society  believed  ar- 
dently in  progressive  evolution,  in  the  sufficiency 
of  the  intellect,  the  inerrancy  of  the  scientific  method, 
and  the  transmission  by  inheritance  of  acquired 
characteristics,  this  supreme  confidence  in  free,  secu- 
lar, compulsory  education  as  the  cure-all  of  the  pro- 
fuse and  pervasive  ills  of  society  was  not  only  nat- 
ural but  inevitable.  I  submit  that  experience  has 
measurably  modified  the  situation,  and  that  we  are 
bound  therefore  to  reconsider  our  earlier  persua- 
sions in  the  light  of  somewhat  revealing  events. 

We  may  admit  that  the  system  of  modern  edu- 
cation works  measurably  well  so  far  as  intellectual 
training  is  concerned;  training  as  distinguished  from 


158   TOWARDS  THE  GREAT  PEACE 

development.  It  works  measurably  well  also  in  pre- 
paring youth  for  participation  in  the  life  of  applied 
science  and  for  making  money  in  business  and  finance. 
Conscientious  hard  labour  has  been  given,  and  is 
being  given,  to  making  it  more  effective  along  these 
lines,  and  almost  every  year  some  new  scheme  is 
brought  forward  enthusiastically,  tried  out  painstak- 
ingly, and  then  cast  aside  ignominiously  for  some 
new  and  even  more  ingenious  device.  The  amount 
of  education  is  enormous;  the  total  of  money  spent 
on  new  foundations,  courses,  buildings,  equipment — 
on  everything  but  the  pay  of  the  teachers — is 
princely;  the  devotion  of  the  teachers,  themselves,  in 
the  face  of  inadequate  wages,  is  exemplary,  and  yet, 
somehow  the  results  are  disappointing.  The  truth 
is,  the  development  of  character  is  not  in  proportion 
to  the  development  of  public  and  private  education. 
The  moral  standing  of  the  nation,  taken  as  a  whole, 
has  been  degenerating;  in  business,  in  public  affairs, 
in  private  life,  until  the  standards  of  value  have 
been  confused,  the  line  of  demarcation  between  right 
and  wrong  blurred  to  indistinctness,  and  the  old  mo- 
tives of  honour,  duty,  service,  charity,  chivalry  and 
compassion  are  no  longer  the  controlling  motive,  or 
at  least  the  conscious  aspiration,  of  active  men. 

This  is  not  to  say  that  these  do  not  exist;  the 
period  that  has  seen  the  retrogression  has  recorded 
also  a  reaction,  and  there  are  now  perhaps  more  who 
are  fired  by  the  ardent  passion  for  active  righteous- 
ness, than  for  several  generations,  but  the  average 
is  lower,  for  where,  many  times  in  the  past,  there 
has  been  a  broad,  general  average  of  decency,  now 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  159 

the  disparity  is  great  between  the  motives  that  drive 
society  as  a  whole,  and  its  methods  of  operation,  and 
the  remnant  that  finds  itself  an  unimportant  minority. 
Newspapers  are  perhaps  hardly  a  fair  criterion  of 
the  moral  status  of  a  people — or  of  anything  else 
for  that  matter — but  what  they  record,  and  the  way 
they  do  it,  is  at  least  an  indication  of  a  condition, 
and  after  every  possible  allowance  has  been  made, 
what  they  record  is  a  very  alarming  standard  of 
public  and  private  morality,  both  in  the  happenings 
themselves  and  in  the  fashion  of  their  publicity. 

No  one  would  claim  that  the  responsibility  for 
this  weakening  of  moral  standards  rests  predomi- 
nantly on  the  shoulders  of  the  educational  system 
of  today;  the  causes  lie  far  deeper  than  this,  but 
the  point  I  wish  to  make  is  that  the  process  has  not 
been  arrested  by  education,  in  spite  of  its  prevalence, 
and  that  therefore  it  is  unwise  to  continue  our  ex- 
clusive faith  in  its  remedial  offices.  The  faith  was 
never  well  founded.  Education  can  do  much,  but 
what  it  does,  or  can  do,  is  to  foster  and  develop 
inherent  possibilities,  whether  these  are  of  character, 
intelligence  or  aptitude :  it  cannot  put  into  a  boy  or 
man  what  was  not  there,  in  posse,  at  birth,  and  hu- 
manly speaking,  the  diversity  of  potential  in  any 
thousand  units  is  limited  only  by  the  number  itself. 
Whether  our  present  educational  methods  are  those 
best  calculated  to  foster  and  develop  these  inherent 
possibilities,  so  varied  in  nature  and  degree,  is  the 
question,  and  it  is  a  question  the  answer  to  which 
depends  largely  on  whether  we  look  on  intelligence, 
capacity  or  character  as  the  thing  of  greatest  mo- 


1 60      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

ment.  For  those  who  believe  that  character  is  the 
thing  of  paramount  importance — amongst  whom  I 
count  myself — the  answer  must  be  in  the  negative. 

Nor  is  an  affirmative  reply  entirely  assured  when 
the  question  is  asked  as  to  the  results  in  the  case  of 
intellect  and  capacity.  There  are  few  who  would 
claim  that  in  either  of  these  directions  the  general 
standard  is  now  as  high  as  it  was,  for  example,  in  the 
last  half  of  the  last  century.  The  Great  War  brought 
to  the  front  few  personalities  of  the  first  class,  and 
the  peace  that  has  followed  has  an  even  less  distin- 
guished record  to  date.  We  may  say  with  truth,  I 
think,  that  the  last  ten  years  have  provided  greater 
issues,  and  smaller  men  to  meet  them  in  the  capacity 
of  leaders,  than  any  previous  crisis  of  similar  mo- 
ment. The  art  of  leadership,  and  the  fact  of  leader- 
ship, have  been  lost,  and  without  leadership  any 
society,  particularly  a  democracy,  is  in  danger  of 
extinction. 

Here  again  one  cannot  charge  education  with  our 
lack  of  men  of  character,  intelligence  and  capacity 
to  lead;  as  before,  the  causes  lie  far  deeper,  but  the 
almost  fatal  absence  at  this  time  of  the  personalities 
of  such  force  and  power  that  they  can  captain  society 
in  its  hours  of  danger  from  war  or  peace,  must  give 
us  some  basis  for  estimating  the  efficiency  of  our  edu- 
cational theory  and  practice,  and  again  raise  doubts 
as  to  whether  here  also  we  shall  be  well  advised  if 
we  rely  exclusively  upon  it  as  the  ultimate  saviour 
of  society,  while  we  are  bound  to  ask  whether  its 
methods,  even  of  developing  intelligence  and  capac- 
ity, are  the  best  that  can  be  devised. 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  l6l 

Another  point  worth  considering  is  this.  So  long 
as  we  could  lay  the  flattering  unction  to  our  souls 
that  acquired  characteristics  were  heritable,  and  that 
therefore  if  an  outcast  from  Posen,  migrating  to 
America,  had  taken  advantage  of  his  new  opportuni- 
ties and  so  had  developed  his  character-potential, 
amassed  money  and  acquired  a  measure  of  education 
and  culture,  he  would  automatically  transmit  some- 
thing of  this  to  his  offspring,  who  would  start  so 
much  the  further  forward  and  would  tend  normally 
to  still  greater  advance,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum,  so 
long  we  were  justified  in  enforcing  the  widest  meas- 
ure of  education  on  all  and  sundry,  and  in  waiting 
in  hope  for  a  future  when  the  cumulative  process 
should  have  accomplished  its  perfect  work.  Now, 
however,  we  are  told  that  this  hope  is  vain,  that  ac- 
quired characteristics  are  not  transmitted  by  hered- 
ity, and  that  the  old  folk-proverb  "it  is  only  three 
generations  between  shirtsleeves  and  shirtsleeves,"  is 
perhaps  more  scientifically  exact  than  the  evolution- 
ary dictum  of  the  nineteenth  century.  Which  is  what 
experience  and  history  have  been  teaching,  lo,  these 
many  years. 

The  question  then  seems  to  divide  itself  into  three 
parts;  (a)  are  we  justified  in  pinning  our  faith  in 
ultimate  social  salvation  to  free,  secular,  and  com- 
pulsory education  carried  to  the  furthest  possible 
limits;  (b)  if  not,  then  what  precisely  is  the  function 
of  formal  education;  and  (c)  this  being  determined, 
is  our  present  method  adequate,  and  if  not  how 
should  it  be  modified? 

It  is  unwise  to  speak  dogmatically  along  any  of 


162   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT   PEACE 

these  lines,  they  are  too  blurred  and  uncertain.     I 
can  only  express  an  individual  opinion. 

It  seems  to  me  that  life  unvaryingly  testifies  to 
the  extreme  disparity  of  potential  in  individuals  and 
in  families  and  in  racial  strains,  though  in  the  two 
latter  the  difference  is  not  necessarily  absolute  and 
permanent,  but  variable  in  point  of  both  time  and 
degree.  In  individuals  the  limit  of  this  potentiality 
is  inherent,  and  it  can  neither  be  completely  inhib- 
ited by  adverse  education  and  environment  nor  meas- 
urably extended  by  favourable  education  and  envi- 
ronment. Characteristics  acquired  outside  inherent 
limitations  are  personal  and  non-heritable,  however 
intimately  they  may  have  become  a  part  of  the  in- 
dividual himself. 

If  this  is  true,  then  the  question  of  education  be- 
comes personal  also;  that  is  to  say,  we  educate  for 
the  individual,  and  with  an  eye  to  the  part  he  him- 
self is  to  play  in  society.  We  do  not  look  for  cumu- 
lative results  but  in  a  sense  deal  with  each  person- 
ality in  regard  to  itself  alone.  I  think  this  has  a 
bearing  both  on  the  extent  to  which  education  should 
be  enforced  and  on  the  quality  and  method  of  edu- 
cation itself,  and  though  the  contention  will  receive 
little  but  ridicule,  I  am  bound  to  say  that  I  hold  that 
general  education  should  be  reduced  in  quantity 
and  considerably  changed  in  nature. 

If  the  limit  of  development  is  substantially  deter- 
mined in  each  individual  and  cannot  be  extended  by 
human  agencies  (I  say  "human"  because  God  in  His 
wisdom  and  by  His  power  can  raise  up  a  prophet 
or  a  saint  out  of  the  lowest  depths,  and  frequently 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  163 

does  so),  then  the  quantity  and  extent  of  general 
education  should  be  determined  not  by  a  period  of 
years  and  the  facilities  offered  by  a  government  lib- 
eral in  its  expenditures,  but  entirely  by  the  demon- 
strated or  indicated  capacity  of  the  individual.  Our 
educational  system  should,  so  far  as  it  is  free  and 
compulsory,  normally  end  with  the  high  school  grade. 
Free  college,  university  and  technical  training  should 
not  be  provided,  except  for  those  who  had  given  un- 
mistakable evidences  that  they  could,  and  probably 
would,  use  it  to  advantage.  This  would  be  pro- 
vided for  by  non-competitive  scholarships,  limited  in 
number  only  by  the  number  of  capable  candidates, 
and  determination  of  this  capacity  would  be,  not  on 
the  basis  of  test  examinations,  but  on  an  average 
record  covering  a  considerable  period  of  time.  It 
is  doubtful  if  even  these  scholarships  should  be 
wholly  free;  some  responsibility  should  be  recog- 
nized, for  a  good  half  of  the  value  of  a  thing  (per- 
haps all  its  value)  lies  in  working  for  it.  A  grant 
without  service,  a  favour  accepted  without  obliga- 
tions, privilege  without  function,  both  cheapen  and 
degrade. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  second  question,  i.  e.,  what 
precisely  is  the  function  of  formal  education.  For 
my  own  part  I  can  answer  this  in  a  sentence.  It 
is  primarily  the  fostering  and  development  of  the 
character-potential  inherent  in  each  individual.  In 
this  process  intellectual  training  and  expansion  and 
the  furthering  of  natural  aptitude  have  a  part,  but 
this  is  secondary  to  the  major  object  which  is  the 
development  of  character. 


164      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

This  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  practice  or 
the  theory  of  recent  times,  and  in  this  fact  lies  one 
of  the  prime  causes  of  failure.  The  one  thing  man 
exists  to  accomplish  is  character;  not  worldly  suc- 
cess and  eminence  in  any  line,  not  the  conquest  of 
nature  (though  some  have  held  otherwise),  not  even 
"adaptation  to  environment"  in  the  argot  of  last 
century  science,  but  character;  the  assimilation  and 
fixing  in  personality  of  high  and  noble  qualities  of 
thought  and  deed,  the  furtherance,  in  a  word,  of 
the  eternal  sacramental  process  of  redemption  of 
matter  through  the  operation  of  spiritual  forces. 
Without  this,  social  and  political  systems,  imperial 
dominion,  wealth  and  power,  a  favourable  balance 
of  trade  avail  nothing;  with  it,  forms  and  methods 
and  the  enginery  of  living  will  look  out  for  them- 
selves. And  yet  this  thing  which  comprises  "the 
whole  duty  of  man"  has,  of  late,  fallen  into  a  sin- 
gular disregard,  while  the  constructive  forces  that 
count  have  either  been  discredited  and  largely  aban- 
doned, as  in  the  case  of  religion,  or,  like  education, 
turned  into  other  channels  or  reversed  altogether,  as 
has  happened  with  the  idea  and  practice  of  obedience, 
discipline,  self-denial,  duty,  honour  and  unselfishness; 
surely  the  most  fantastic  issue  fo  the  era  of  enlight- 
enment, of  liberty  and  of  freedom  of  conscience. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  character,  as  the  chief  end 
of  man  and  the  sole  guaranty  of  a  decent  society, 
has  been  neglected;  it  was  not  disregarded  by  any 
conscious  process,  but  the  headlong  events  that  have 
followed  since  the  fifteenth  century  have  steadily  dis- 


EDUCATION     AND     ART  165 

torted  our  judgment  and  confused  our  standards  of 
value  even  to  reversal.  By  an  imperceptible  process 
other  matters  have  come  to  engage  our  interest  and 
control  our  action,  until  at  last  we  are  confronted  by 
the  nemesis  of  our  own  unwisdom,  and  we  entertain 
the  threat  of  a  dissolving  civilization  just  because  the 
forces  we  have  engendered  or  set  loose  have  not 
been  curbed  or  directed  by  that  vigorous  and  potent 
personal  character  informing  a  people  and  a  society, 
that  we  had  forgot  in  our  haste  and  that  alone 
could  give  us  safety. 

Formal  education  is  but  one  of  the  factors  that 
may  be  employed  towards  the  development  of  char- 
acter; you  cannot  so  easily  separate  one  force  in 
life  from  another,  assigning  a  specific  duty  here,  a 
definite  task  there.  That  is  one  of  the  weaknesses 
of  our  time,  the  water-tight  compartment  plan  of 
high  specialization,  the  cellular  theory  of  efficiency. 
Life  must  be  seen  as  a  whole,  organized  as  a  whole, 
lived  as  a  whole.  Every  thought,  every  emotion, 
every  action,  works  for  the  building  or  the  unbuild- 
ing of  character,  and  this  synthesis  of  living  must 
be  reestablished  before  we  can  hope  for  social  re- 
generation. Nevertheless  formal  education  may  be 
made  a  powerful  factor,  even  now,  and  not  only  in 
this  one  specific  direction,  but  through  this,  for  the 
accomplishing  of  that  unification  of  life  that  already 
is  indicated  as  the  next  great  task  that  is  set  before 
us;  and  this  brings  me  to  a  consideration  of  the  last 
of  the  questions  I  have  proposed  for  answer,  viz. : 
is  our  present  system  of  education  adequate  to  the 


l66   TOWARDS  THE  GREAT  PEACE 

sufficient  development  of  character,  and  if  not,  how 
should  it  be  modified? 

I  do  not  think  it  adequate,  and  experience  seems 
to  me  to  prove  the  point.  It  has  not  maintained 
the  sturdy  if  sometimes  acutely  unpleasant  character 
of  the  New  England  stock,  or  the  strong  and  hand- 
some character  of  the  race  that  dwelt  in  the  thirteen 
original  colonies  as  this  manifested  itself  well  into 
the  last  century,  and  it  has,  in  general,  bred  no  new 
thing  in  the  millions  of  immigrants  and  their  de- 
scendants who  have  flooded  the  country  since  1840 
and  from  whom  the  public  schools  and  some  of  the 
colleges  are  largely  recruited.  It  is  not  a  question  of 
expanded  brain  power  or  applied  aptitude,  but  of 
character,  and  here  there  is  a  larger  measure  of 
failure  than  we  had  a  right  to  expect.  And  yet,  had 
we  this  right?  The  avowed  object  of  formal  edu- 
cation is  mental  and  vocational  training,  and  by  no 
stretch  of  the  imagination  can  we  hold  these  to  be 
synonymous  with  character.  We  have  dealt  with 
and  through  one  thing  alone,  and  that  is  the  intellect, 
whereas  character  is  rather  the  product  of  emotions 
judiciously  stimulated,  balanced  (not  controlled)  by 
intellect,  and  applied  through  active  and  varied  ex- 
perience. Deliberately  have  we  cut  out  every  emo- 
tional and  spiritual  factor;  not  only  religion  and  the 
fine  arts,  but  also  the  studies,  and  the  methods  of 
study,  and  the  type  of  text-books,  that  might  have 
helped  in  the  process  of  spiritual  and  emotional  de- 
velopment. We  have  eliminated  Latin  and  Greek, 
or  taught  them  as  a  branch  of  philology;  we  have 
made  English  a  technical  exercise  in  analysis  and 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  167 

composition,  disregarding  the  moral  and  spiritual 
significance  of  the  works  of  the  great  masters  of 
English;  we  minimize  ancient  history  and  concentrate 
on  European  history  since  the  French  Revolution, 
and  on  the  history  of  the  United  States,  and  because 
of  the  sensitiveness  of  our  endless  variety  of  religion- 
ists (pro  forma)  text  books  are  written  which  leave 
religion  out  of  history  altogether — and  frequently 
economics  and  politics  as  well  when  these  cannot  be 
made  to  square  with  popular  convictions ;  philosophy 
and  logic  are  already  pretty  well  discarded,  except 
for  special  electives  and  post-graduate  courses,  and 
as  for  art  in  its  multifarious  forms  we  know  it  not, 
unless  it  be  in  the  rudimentary  and  devitalized  form 
of  free-hand  drawing  and  occasional  concerted  sing- 
ing. The  only  thing  that  is  left  in  the  line  of  emo- 
tional stimulus  is  competitive  athletics,  and  for  this 
reason  I  sometimes  think  it  one  of  the  most  valuable 
factors  in  public  education.  It  has,  however,  another 
function,  and  that  is  the  coordination  of  training  and 
life;  it  is  in  a  sense  an  ecole  d' application,  and 
through  it  the  student,  for  once  in  a  way,  tries  out 
his  acquired  mental  equipment  and  his  expanding 
character — as  well  as  his  physical  prowess — against 
the  circumstances  of  active  vitality.  It  is  just  this 
sort  of  thing  that  for  so  long  made  the  "public 
schools"  of  England,  however  limited  or  defective 
may  have  been  the  curriculum,  a  vital  force  in  the 
development  of  British  character. 

At  best,  however,  this  seems  to  me  but  an  in- 
different substitute,  an  inadequate  "extra,"  doing 
limitedly  the  real  work  of  education  by  indirection. 


l68   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT  PEACE 

What  we  need  (granting  my  assumption  of  charac- 
ter as  the  terminus  ad  quern}  is  an  educational  sys- 
tem so  recast  that  the  formal  studies  and  the  col- 
lateral influences  and  the  school  life  shall  be  more 
coordinated  in  themselves  and  with  life,  and  that 
the  resulting  stimulus  shall  be  equally  operative  along 
intellectual,  emotional  and  creative  lines. 

It  is  sufficiently  easy  to  make  suggestions  as  to 
how  this  is  to  be  accomplished,  to  lay  out  pro- 
grammes and  lay  down  curricula,  but  here  as  else- 
where this  does  not  amount  to  much;  the  change 
must  come  and  the  institutions  develop  as  the  re- 
sult of  the  operations  of  life.  If  we  can  change  our 
view  of  the  object  of  education,  the  very  force  of 
life,  working  through  experience,  will  adequately  de- 
termine the  forms.  It  is  not  therefore  as  a  metic- 
ulous and  mechanical  system  that  I  make  the  fol- 
lowing suggestions  as  to  certain  desirable  changes, 
but  rather  to  indicate  more  exactly  what  I  mean 
by  a  scheme  of  education  that  will  work  primarily 
towards  the  development  of  character. 

Now  in  the  first  place,  I  must  hold  that  there  can 
be  no  education  which  works  primarily  for  charac- 
ter building,  that  is  not  interpenetrated  at  every 
point  by  definite,  concrete  religion  and  the  practice 
of  religion.  As  I  shall  try  to  show  in  my  last  two 
lectures,  religion  is  the  force  or  factor  that  links 
action  with  life.  It  is  the  only  power  available  to 
man  that  makes  possible  a  sound  standard  of  com- 
parative values,  and  with  philosophy  teaching  man 
how  to  put  things  in  their  right  order,  it  enters  to 
show  him  how  to  control  them  well,  while  it  offers 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  169 

the  great  constructive  energy  that  makes  the  world 
an  orderly  unity  rather  than  a  type  of  chaos.  Until 
the  Reformation  there  was  no  question  as  to  this, 
and  even  after,  in  the  nations  that  accepted  the  great 
revolution,  the  point  was  for  a  time  maintained; 
thereafter  the  centrifugal  tendency  in  Protestantism 
resulted  in  such  a  wealth  of  mutually  antagonistic 
sects  that  the  application  of  the  principle  became 
impracticable,  and  for  this,  as  well  as  for  more  fun- 
damental reasons,  it  fell  into  desuetude.  The  condi- 
tion is  as  difficult  today  for  the  process  of  denomina- 
tional fission  has  gone  steadily  forward,  and  as  this 
energy  of  the  religious  influence  weakens  the  stren- 
uosity  of  maintenance  strengthens.  With  our  157 
varieties  of  Protestantism  confronting  Catholicism, 
Hebraism,  and  a  mass  of  frank  rationalism  and  in- 
fidelity as  large  in  amount  as  all  others  combined,  it 
would  seem  at  first  sight  impossible  to  harmonize 
free  public  education  with  concrete  religion  in  any 
intimate  way.  So  it  is;  but  if  the  principle  is  recog- 
nized and  accepted,  ways  and  means  will  offer  them- 
selves, and  ultimately  the  principle  will  be  embodied 
in  a  workable  scheme. 

For  example ;  there  is  one  thing  that  can  be  done 
anywhere,  and  whenever  enough  votes  can  be  assem- 
bled to  carry  through  the  necessary  legislation.  At 
present  the  law  regards  with  an  austere  disapproval 
that  reflects  a  popular  opinion  (now  happily  tending 
towards  decay),  what  are  known  as  "denominational 
schools"  and  other  institutions  of  learning.  Those 
that  maintain  the  necessity  of  an  intimate  union  be- 
tween religion  and  education,  as  for  example  the 


1 70      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

great  majority  of  Roman  Catholics  and  an  increasing 
number  of  Episcopalians  and  Presbyterians,  are 
taxed  for  the  support  of  secular  public  schools  which 
they  do  not  use,  while  they  must  maintain  at  addi- 
tional, and  very  great,  expense,  parochial  and  other 
private  schools  where  their  children  may  be  taught 
after  a  fashion  which  they  hold  to  be  necessary  from 
their  own  point  of  view.  Again,  state  support  is  re* 
fused  to  such  schools  or  colleges  as  may  be  under 
specific  religious  control,  while  pension  funds  for 
the  teachers,  established  by  generous  benefactions, 
are  explicitly  reserved  for  those  who  are  on  the  fac- 
ulties of  institutions  which  formally  dissociate  them- 
selves from  any  religious  influence.  I  maintain  that 
this  is  both  unjust  and  against  public  policy.  Under 
our  present  system  of  religious  individualism  and 
ecclesiastical  multiplicity,  approximations  only  are 
possible,  but  I  believe  the  wise  and  just  plan  would 
be  for  the  state  to  fix  certain  standards  which  all 
schools  receiving  financial  support  from  the  public 
funds  must  maintain,  and  then,  this  condition  being 
carried  out,  distribute  the  funds  received  from  gen- 
eral taxation  to  public  and  private  schools  alike. 
This  would  enable  Episcopalians,  let  us  say,  or  Ro- 
man Catholics,  or  Jews,  when  in  any  community  they 
are  numerous  enough  to  provide  a  sufficiency  of 
scholars  for  any  primary,  grammar,  or  high  school, 
to  establish  such  a  school  in  as  close  a  relationship 
to  their  own  religion  as  they  desired,  and  have  this 
school  maintained  out  of  the  funds  of  the  city.  This 
is  not  a  purely  theoretical  proposition;  after  an  agi- 
tation lasting  nearly  half  a  century,  Holland  has  this 


EDUCATION     AND     ART  iyi 

year  put  such  a  law  in  force.  From  every  point  of 
view  we  should  do  well  to  recognize  this  plan  as 
both  just  and  expedient.  One  virtue  it  would  have, 
apart  from  those  already  noted,  is  the  variation  it 
would  permit  in  curricula,  text  books,  personnel  and 
scholastic  life  as  between  one  school  and  another. 
There  is  no  more  fatal  error  in  education  than  that 
standardization  which  has  recently  become  a  fad 
and  which  finds  its  most  mechanistic  manifestation 
in  France. 

Of  course  this  need  for  the  fortifying  of  educa- 
tion by  religion  is  recognized  even  now,  but  the  only 
plan  devised  for  putting  it  into  effect  is  one  whereby 
various  ministers  of  religion  are  allowed  a  certain 
brief  period  each  week  in  which  they  may  enter  the 
public  schools  and  give  denominational  instruction 
to  those  who  desire  their  particular  ministrations. 
This  is  one  of  the  compromises,  like  the  older  method 
of  Bible  reading  without  commentary  or  exposition, 
which  avails  nothing  and  is  apt  to  be  worse  than 
frank  and  avowed  secularism.  It  is  putting  religion 
on  exactly  the  same  plane  as  analytical  chemistry, 
psychoanalysis  or  salesmanship,  (the  latter  I  am  told 
is  about  to  be  introduced  in  the  Massachusetts  high 
schools)  or  any  other  "elective,"  whereas  if  it  is  to 
have  any  value  whatever  it  must  be  an  ever-present 
force  permeating  the  curriculum,  the  minds  of  the 
teachers,  and  the  school  life  from  end  to  end,  and 
there  is  no  way  in  which  this  can  be  accomplished 
except  by  a  policy  that  will  permit  the  maintenance 
of  schools  under  religious  domination  at  the  expense 
of  the  state,  provided  they  comply  with  certain  purely 


172      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

educational  requirements  established  and  enforced 
by  the  state. 

I  have  already  pointed  out  what  seems  to  me  the 
desirability  of  a  considerable  variation  between  the 
curriculum  of  one  school  and  another.  This  would 
be  possible  and  probably  certain  under  the  scheme 
proposed,  but  barring  this,  it  is  surely  an  open  ques- 
tion whether  the  pretty  thoroughly  standardized  cur- 
riculum now  in  operation  would  not  be  considerably 
modified  to  advantage  if  it  is  recognized  that  the 
prime  object  of  education  is  character  rather  than 
mental  training  and  the  fitting  of  a  pupil  to  obtain 
a  paying  job  on  graduation.  From  my  own  point 
of  view  the  answer  is  in  a  vociferous  affirmative.  I 
suggest  the  drastic  reduction  of  the  very  superficial 
science  courses  in  all  schools  up  to  and  including  the 
high  school,  certainly  in  chemistry,  physics  and  biol- 
ogy, but  perhaps  with  some  added  emphasis  on  as- 
tronomy, geology  and  botany.  History  should  be- 
come one  of  the  fundamental  subjects,  and  English, 
both  being  taught  for  their  humanistic  value  and  not 
as  exercises  in  memory  or  for  the  purpose  of  making 
a  student  a  sort  of  dictionary  of  dates.  This  would 
require  a  considerable  rewriting  of  history  text 
books,  as  well  as  a  corresponding  change  in  the 
methods  of  teaching,  but  after  all,  are  not  these  both 
consummations  devoutly  to  be  wished.  There  are 
few  histories  like  Mr.  Chesterton's  "Short  History 
of  England,"  unfortunately.  One  would,  perhaps, 
hardly  commend  this  stimulating  book  as  a  sufficient 
statement  of  English  history  for  general  use  in 
schools,  but  its  approach  is  wholly  right  and  it  pos- 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  173 

sesses  the  singular  virtue  of  interest.  Another  thing 
that  commends  it  is  the  fact  that  while  it  runs  from 
Caesar  to  Mr.  Lloyd  George,  it  contains,  I  believe, 
only  seven  specific  dates,  three  of  which  are  possibly 
wrong.  This  is  as  it  should  be — not  the  inaccuracies 
but  the  commendable  frugality  in  point  of  number. 
Dates,  apart  from  a  few  key  years,  are  of  small 
historical  importance ;  so  are  the  details  of  palace  in- 
trigues and  military  campaigns.  History  is,  or 
should  be,  life  expressed  in  terms  of  romance,  and 
it  is  of  little  moment  whether  the  narrated  incidents 
are  established  by  documentary  evidence  or  whether 
they  are  contemporary  legend  quite  unsubstantiated 
by  what  are  known  (and  overestimated)  as  "facts." 
There  is  more  of  the  real  Middle  Ages  in  Mallory's 
"Mort  d'Arthur"  than  there  is  in  all  Hallam,  and 
the  same  antithesis  can  be  established  for  nearly  all 
other  periods  of  history. 

The  history  of  man  is  one  great  dramatic  ro- 
mance, and  so  used  it  may  be  made  perhaps  the  most 
stimulating  agency  in  education  as  character  devel- 
opment. I  do  not  mean  romance  in  the  sense  in 
which  Mr.  Wells  takes  it,  that  is  to  say,  the  dra- 
matic assembling  and  clever  coordination  of  unsub- 
stantiated theories,  personal  preferences,  prejudices 
and  aversions,  under  the  guise  of  solemn  and  irre- 
futable truth  attested  by  all  the  exact  sciences  known 
to  man,  but  romance  which  aims  like  any  other  art 
at  communicating  from  one  person  to  another  some- 
thing of  the  inner  and  essential  quality  of  life  as  it 
has  been  lived,  even  if  the  material  used  is  textually 
doubtful  or  even  probably  apocryphal.  The  deadly 


174      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

enemy  of  good,  sound  history  is  scientific  historical 
criticism.  The  true  history  is  romantic  tradition;  the 
stimulating  thing,  the  tale  that  makes  the  blood  leap, 
the  pictorial  incident  that  raises  up  in  an  instant  the 
luminous  vision  of  some  great  thing  that  once  was. 
I  would  not  exchange  Kit  Marlowe's 

"Is  this  the  face  that  launched  a  thousand  ships 
And  burnt  the  topless  towers  of  Ilium?" 

for  all  the  critical  commentaries  of  Teutonic  pedants 
on  the  character  and  attributes  of  Helen  of  Troy 
as  these  have  (to  them)  been  revealed  by  archaeo- 
logical investigations.  I  dare  say  that  Bishop  St. 
Remi  of  Reims  never  said  in  so  many  words  "Bow 
thy  proud  head,  Sicambrian ;  destroy  what  thou  hast 
worshipped,  worship  what  thou  hast  destroyed,"  and 
that  the  Meroving  monarch  did  not  go  thence  to 
issue  an  "order  of  the  day"  that  the  army  should 
forthwith  march  down  to  the  river  and  be  baptized 
by  battalions;  but  there  is  the  clear,  unforgettable 
picture  of  the  times  and  the  men,  and  it  will  remain 
after  the  world  has  forgotten  that  some  one  has 
proved  that  St.  Remi  never  met  Clovis,  and  that  he 
himself  was  probably  only  a  variant  of  the  great  and 
original  "sun-myth." 

Closely  allied  with  the  teaching  of  history  and 
forming  a  link  as  it  were  with  the  teaching  of  Eng- 
lish, is  a  branch  of  study  at  present  unformulated 
and  unknown,  but,  I  am  convinced,  of  great  impor- 
tance in  education  as  a  method  of  character  de- 
velopment. Life  has  always  focused  in  great  per- 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  175 

sonalities,  and  formal  history  has  recognized  the  fact 
while  showing  little  discretion,  and  sometimes  very 
defective  judgment,  in  the  choices  it  has  made.  A 
past  period  becomes  our  own  in  so  far  as  we  trans- 
late it  through  its  personalities  and  its  art;  the  origi- 
nal documents  matter  little,  except  when  they  be- 
come misleading,  as  they  frequently  do,  when  read 
through  contemporary  spectacles.  Now  the  great 
figures  of  a  time  are  not  only  princes  and  politicians, 
conquerors  and  conspirators,  they  are  quite  as  apt  to 
be  the  knights  and  heroes  and  brave  gentlemen  who 
held  no  conspicuous  position  in  Church  or  state.  I 
think  we  need  what  might  be  called  "The  Golden 
Book  of  Knighthood" — or  a  series  of  text  books 
adapted  to  elementary  and  advanced  schools — made 
up  of  the  lives  and  deeds  (whether  attested  by  "orig- 
inal documents,"  or  legendary  or  even  fabulous  does 
not  matter)  of  those  in  all  times,  and  amongst  all 
peoples,  who  were  the  glory  of  knighthood;  the 
"parfait  gentyl  Knyghtes"  "without  fear  and  with- 
out reproach."  Such  for  example,  to  go  no  farther 
back  than  the  Christian  Era,  as  St.  George  and  St. 
Martin,  King  Arthur  and  Launcelot  and  Galahad, 
Charles  Martel  and  Roland,  St.  Louis,  Godfrey  de 
Bouillon  and  Saladin,  the  Earl  of  Strafford,  Mon- 
trose  and  Claverhouse,  the  Chevalier  Bayard,  Don 
John  of  Austria,  Washington  and  Robert  Lee  and 
George  Wyndham.  These  are  but  a  few  names,  re- 
membered at  random;  there  are  scores  besides,  and 
I  think  that  they  should  be  held  up  to  honour  and 
emulation  throughout  the  formative  period  of  youth. 
After  all,  they  became,  during  the  years  when  these 


176      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

qualities  were  exalted,  the  personification  of  the 
ideals  of  honour  and  chivalry,  of  compassion  and 
generosity,  of  service  and  self-sacrifice  and  courtesy, 
and  these,  the  qualifications  of  a  gentleman  and  a 
man  or  honour,  are,  with  the  religion  that  fostered 
them,  and  the  practice  of  that  religion,  the  just  ob- 
jective of  education. 

Much  of  all  this  can  even  now  be  taught  through 
a  judicious  use  of  the  opportunities  offered  instruc- 
tors in  English,  whether  this  is  through  the  graded 
"readers"  of  elementary  education,  or  the  more  ex- 
tended courses  in  colleges  and  universities.  Very 
frequently  these  opportunities  are  ignored,  and  will 
be  until  we  achieve  something  of  a  new  orientation 
in  the  matter  of  teaching  English. 

Now  it  may  be  I  hold  a  vain  and  untenable  view 
of  this  subject,  but  I  am  willing  to  confess  that  I 
believe  the  object  of  teaching  English  is  the  un- 
locking of  the  treasures  of  thought,  character  and 
emotion  preserved  in  the  written  records  of  the 
tongue,  and  the  arousing  of  a  desire  to  know  and 
assimilate  these  treasures  on  the  part  of  the  pupil. 
I  am  very  sure  that  English  should  not  be  taught 
as  a  thing  ending  in  "ology,"  not  as  an  intricate 
science  with  all  sorts  of  laws  and  rules  and  excep- 
tions; not  as  a  system  whereby  the  little  children 
of  the  Ghetto,  and  the  offspring  of  Pittsburgh  mil- 
lionaires, and  the  spectacled  infant  elect  of  Beacon 
Hill  may  all  be  raised  to  the  point  where  they  can 
write  with  acceptable  fluency  the  chiselled  phrases  of 
Matthew  Arnold,  the  cadenced  Latinity  of  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  the  sonorous  measures  of  Boling- 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  177 

broke  or  the  distinguished  and  resonant  periods  of 
the  King  James  Bible.  Such  an  aim  as  this  will  al- 
ways result  in  failure. 

The  English  language  is  the  great  storehouse  of 
the  rich  thought  and  the  burning  emotion  of  the 
English  race,  and  all  this,  as  it  has  issued  out  of 
character,  works  towards  the  development  of  char- 
acter, when  it  is  made  operative  in  new  generations. 
There  is  no  other  language  but  Latin  that  has  pre- 
served so  great  a  wealth  of  invaluable  things,  and 
English  is  taught  in  order  that  it  all  may  be  more 
available  through  that  appreciation  that  comes  from 
familiarity.  There  is  no  nobler  record  in  the  world: 
from  Chaucer  down  to  the  moderns  is  one  splendid 
sequence  of  character-revelations  through  a  perfect 
but  varied  art,  for  literature  is  also  a  fine  art,  and 
one  of  the  greatest  of  all.  Is  it  not  fair  to  say  that 
the  chief  duty  of  the  teacher  of  English  is  to  lead 
the  student  to  like  great  literature,  to  find  it  and 
enjoy  it  for  himself,  and  through  it  to  come  to  the 
liking  of  great  ideas? 

In  the  old  days  there  was  an  historical,  or  rather 
archaeological,  method  that  was  popular;  also  an 
analytical  and  grammarian  method.  There  was  also 
the  philological  method  which  was  quite  the  worst  of 
all  and  had  almost  as  devastating  results  as  in  the 
case  of  Latin.  It  almost  seems  as  though  English 
were  being  taught  for  the  production  of  a  commu- 
nity of  highly  specialized  teachers.  No  one  would 
now  go  back  to  any  of  those  quaint  and  archaic 
ways  digged  up  out  of  the  dim  and  remote  past  of 
the  XlXth  century.  We  should  all  agree,  I  think, 


178   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT  PEACE 

that  for  general  education,  specialized  technical 
knowledge  is  unimportant  and  scientific  intensive 
methods  unjustifiable.  For  one  student  who  will  turn 
out  a  teacher  there  are  five  hundred  that  will  be  just 
simple  voters,  wage-earners,  readers  of  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post  and  the  New  Republic,  members  of 
the  Fourth  Presbyterian  Church  or  the  Ethical  So- 
ciety, and  respectable  heads  of  families.  The  School 
of  Pedagogy  has  its  own  methods  (I  am  given  to 
understand),  but  under  correction  I  submit  they  are 
not  those  of  general  education.  Shall  I  put  the 
whole  thing  in  a  phrase  and  say  that  the  object  of 
teaching  English  is  to  get  young  people  to  like  good 
things? 

You  may  say  this  is  English  Literature,  not  Eng- 
lish. Are  the  two  so  very  far  apart?  English  as 
a  language  is  taught  to  make  literature  available. 
"Example  is  better  than  precept."  Reading  good 
literature  for  the  love  of  it  will  bring  in  the  habit 
of  grammatical  speaking  and  writing  far  more  ef- 
fectively than  what  is  known  as  "a  thorough  ground- 
ing in  the  principles  of  English  grammar."  I  doubt 
if  the  knowledge  of,  and  facility  in,  English  can  be 
built  up  on  such  a  basis;  rather  the  laws  should  be 
deduced  from  examples.  Philology,  etymology,  syn- 
tax are  derivatives,  not  foundations.  "Practice 
makes  perfect"  is  a  saying  that  needs  to  be  followed 
by  the  old  scholastic  defensive  "distinguo"  Practice 
in  reading,  rather  than  practice  in  writing,  makes 
good  English  composition  possible.  The  "daily 
theme"  may  be  overdone;  it  is  of  little  use  unless 
thought  keeps  ahead  of  the  pen. 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  179 

I  would  plead  then  for  the  teaching  of  English 
after  a  fashion  that  will  reveal  great  thoughts  and 
stimulate  to  greater  life,  through  the  noble  art  of 
English  literature  and  the  perfectly  illogical  but  alto- 
gether admirable  English  language.  The  function 
of  education  is  to  make  students  feel,  think  and  act, 
after  a  fashion  that  increasingly  reveals  and  utilizes 
the  best  that  is  in  them,  and  increasingly  serves  the 
uses  of  society,  and  both  history  and  English  can 
be  so  taught  as  to  help  towards  the  accomplishment 
of  these  ends. 

There  is  another  factor  that  may  be  so  used,  but 
I  confess  I  shall  speak  of  it  with  some  hesitation. 
It  is  at  present,  and  has  been  for  ages,  entirely  out- 
side the  possibility  even  of  consideration,  and  in  a 
sense  that  goes  beyond  the  general  ignoring  of  re- 
ligion, for  while  Catholics,  who  form  the  great  ma- 
jority of  Christians,  still  hold  to  religion  as  a  prime 
element  in  education,  there  are  none — or  only  a 
minority  so  small  as  to  be  negligible — who  give  a 
thought  to  art  in  this  connection.  I  bring  forward 
the  word,  and  the  thing  it  represents,  with  diffidence, 
even  apologetically:  indeed,  it  is  perhaps  better  to 
renounce  the  word  altogether  and  substitute  the  term 
"beauty,"  for  during  the  nineteenth  century  art  got 
a  bad  name,  not  altogether  undeservedly,  and  the 
disrepute  lingers.  So  long  as  beauty  is  an  instinct 
native  to  men  (and  it  was  this,  except  for  very  brief 
and  periodic  intervals,  until  hardly  more  than  a 
century  ago,  though  latterly  in  a  vanishing  form),  it 
is  wholesome,  stimulating  and  indispensable,  but 
when  it  becomes  self-conscious,  when  it  finds  itself 


l8o      TOWARDS      THE      GREAT      PEACE 

the  possession  of  a  few  highly  differentiated  individ- 
uals instead  of  the  attribute  of  man  as  such,  then 
it  tends  to  degenrate  into  something  abnormal  and, 
in  its  last  estate,  both  futile  and  unclean.  In  its 
good  estate,  as  for  example  in  Greece,  Byzantium, 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  in  Oriental  countries  until  the 
last  few  decades,  beauty  was  so  natural  an  object 
of  endeavour  and  a  mode  of  expression,  and  its  uni- 
versality resulted  in  so  characteristic  an  environment, 
it  was  unnecessary  to  talk  about  it  very  much,  or 
to  give  any  particular  thought  to  the  educational 
value  of  the  arts  which  were  its  manifestation 
through  and  to  man,  or  how  this  was  to  be  applied. 
The  things  were  there,  everywhere  at  hand;  the  tem- 
ples and  churches,  the  painting  and  the  sculpture 
and  the  works  of  handicraft;  the  music  and  poetry 
and  drama,  the  ceremonial  and  costume  of  daily  life, 
both  secular  and  religious,  the  very  cities  in  which 
men  congregated  and  the  villages  in  which  they  were 
dispersed.  Beauty,  in  all  its  concrete  forms  of  art, 
was  highly  valued,  almost  as  highly  as  religion  or 
liberty  or  bodily  health,  but  then  it  was  a  part  of 
normal  life  and  therefore  taken  for  granted. 

Now  all  is  changed.  For  just  an  hundred  years 
(the  process  definitely  began  here  in  America  be- 
tween 1820  and  1823)  we  have  been  eliminating 
beauty  as  an  attribute  of  life  and  living  until,  during 
the  last  two  generations,  it  is  true  to  say  that  the 
instinctive  impulse  of  the  race  as  a  whole  is  towards 
ugliness  in  those  categories  of  creation  and  appre- 
ciation where  formerly  it  had  been  towards  beauty. 
Of  course  the  corollary  of  this  was  the  driving  of 


EDUCATION     AND     ART  l8l 

the  unhappy  man  in  whom  was  born  some  belated 
impulse  towards  the  apprehending  of  beauty  and  its 
visible  expression  in  some  art,  back  upon  himself, 
until,  conscious  of  his  isolation  and  confident  of  his 
own  superiority,  he  not  only  made  his  art  a  form  of 
purely  personal  expression  (or  even  of  exposure), 
but  held  himself  to  be,  and  so  conducted  himself,  as 
a  being  apart,  for  whom  the  laws  of  the  herd  were 
not,  and  to  whom  all  men  should  bow. 

The  separation  of  art  from  life  is  only  less  disas- 
trous in  its  results  than  the  separation  of  religion 
from  life,  particularly  since  with  the  former  went 
the  separation  of  art  (and  therefore  of  beauty)  from 
its  immemorial  alliance  with  religion.  It  was  bad  for 
art,  it  was  bad  for  religion,  and  it  was  worst  of  all 
for  life  itself.  Beyond  a  certain  point  man  cannot 
live  in  and  with  and  through  ugliness,  nor  can  society 
endure  under  such  conditions,  and  the  fact  is  that, 
however  it  came  to  pass,  modern  civilization  has 
functioned  through  explicit  ugliness,  and  the  environ- 
ment it  has  made  for  its  votaries  and  its  rebels 
indifferently,  is  unique  in  its  palpable  hideousness; 
from  the  clothes  it  wears  and  the  motives  it  extols, 
to  the  cities  it  builds,  and  the  structures  therein,  and 
the  scheme  of  life  that  romps  along  in  its  ruthless 
career  within  the  sordid  suburbs  that  take  the  place 
of  the  once  enclosing  walls.  And  the  defiant  and 
segregated  "artists,"  mortuary  art  museums,  the 
exposed  statues  and  hidden  pictures,  the  opera  sub- 
sidized by  "high  society,"  and  the  "arts  and  crafts" 
societies  and  the  "art  magazines"  and  "art  schools" 
and  clubs  and  "city  beautiful"  committees,  only  seem 


l82       TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

to  make  the  contrast  more  apparent  and  the  des- 
perate nature  of  the  situation  more  profound. 

It  is  a  new  situation  altogether,  and  nowhere  in 
history  is  there  any  recorded  precedent  to  which 
we  can  return  for  council  and  example,  for  nothing 
quite  of  the  same  sort  ever  happened  before.  It  is 
also  a  problem  of  which  formal  education  must  take 
cognizance,  for  the  lack  is  one  which  must  some- 
how be  supplied,  while  it  reveals  an  astonishing 
lacuna  in  life  that  means  a  new  deficiency  in  the 
unconscious  education  of  man  that  renders  him  in- 
effective in  life;  defective  even,  it  may  be,  unless 
from  some  source  he  can  acquire  something  of  what 
in  the  past  life  itself  could  afford. 

Indeed  it  is  not  merely  a  negative  influence  we 
deal  with,  but  a  positive,  for,  to  paraphrase  a  little, 
"ugly  associations  corrupt  good  morals."  Youth  is 
beaten  upon  at  many  points  by  things  that  not  only 
look  ugly,  but  are,  and  as  in  compassion  we  are 
bound  to  offer  some  new  agency  to  fill  a  lack,  so  in 
self-defence  we  must  take  thought  as  to  how  the  evil 
influence  of  contemporaneousness  is  to  be  nullified 
and  its  results  corrected. 

I  confess  the  method  seems  to  me  to  lean  more 
closely  to  the  indirect  influence  rather  than  the  di- 
rect. It  is  doubtful  if  "art"  can  really  be  taught  in 
any  sense;  the  inherent  sense  of  beauty  can  be  fos- 
tered and  an  inherent  aptitude  developed,  but  that 
is  about  all.  As  for  the  building  up  of  a  non-pro- 
fessional passion  for  art  I  am  quite  sure  it  cannot 
be  done,  and  should  hardly  be  attempted,  and  very 
likely  the  same  is  true  of  the  application  of  beauty. 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  183 

Text  books  on  "How  to  Understand"  this  art  or 
that  are  interesting  ventures  into  abstract  theory, 
but  they  are  little  more.  We  must  always  remember 
that  art  is  a  result,  not  a  product,  and  that  sense 
of  beauty  is  a  natural  gift  and  not  an  accomplish- 
ment. On  the  other  hand,  much  can  be  accomplished 
by  indirection,  and  by  this  I  mean  the  buildings  and 
the  grounds  and  the  cultural  adjuncts  that  are  of- 
fered by  any  school  or  college.  The  ordinary  type 
of  school-house — primary,  grammar  or  high  school 
— is,  in  its  barren  ugliness  and  its  barbarous  "effi- 
ciency," a  very  real  outrage  on  decency,  and  a  few 
Braun  photographs  and  plaster  casts  and  potted 
plants  avail  nothing.  Private  schools  and  some  col- 
leges— by  no  means  all — are  apt  to  be  somewhat 
better,  and  here  the  improvement  during  the  last 
ten  years  has  been  amazing,  one  or  two  universities 
having  acquired  single  buildings,  or  groups,  of  the 
most  astonishing  architectural  beauty.  In  no  case, 
however,  has  as  yet  complete  unity  been  achieved, 
while  the  arts  of  painting,  sculpture,  music  and  the 
drama,  as  vital  and  operative  and  pervasive  influ- 
ences, lag  far  behind,  and  formal  religion  with  its 
liturgies  and  ceremonial,  its  constant  and  varied  serv- 
ices and  its  fine  and  appealing  pageantry — religion 
which  is  the  greatest  vitalizing  and  stimulating  force 
in  beauty  is  hardly  touched  at  all. 

Bad  art  of  any  kind  is  bad  anywhere,  but  in  any 
type  of  educational  institution,  from  the  kindergar- 
ten to  the  post  graduate  college,  it  is  worse  and 
less  excusable  than  it  is  elsewhere,  unless  it  be  in 
association  with  religion,  while  the  absence  of  beauty 


1 84      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

at  the  instigation  of  parsimony  or  efficiency  is  just 
as  bad.  I  am  firmly  persuaded  that  we  need,  not 
more  courses  of  study  but  more  beautiful  environ- 
ment for  scholars  under  instruction. 

I  have  touched  cursorily  on  certain  elements  in 
education  which  need  either  a  new  emphasis  or  an 
altogether  new  interpretation;  religion,  history,  art, 
but  this  does  not  mean  that  the  same  treatment 
should  not  be  accorded  elsewhere.  There  are  cer- 
tain studies  that  should  be  revived,  such  as  formal 
logic,  there  are  others  that  need  immediate  and  com- 
plete restoration,  as  Latin  for  example,  there  are 
many,  chiefly  along  scientific  and  vocational  lines, 
that  could  well  be  minimized,  or  in  some  cases  dis- 
pensed with  altogether:  one  might  go  on  indefinitely 
on  this  line,  however,  weighing  and  testing  studies 
in  relation  to  their  character-value,  but  certainly 
enough  has  already  been  said  to  indicate  the  point 
of  view  I  would  urge  for  consideration.  Before  I 
close,  however,  I  want  to  touch  on  two  points  that 
arise  in  connection  with  college  education,  if,  even 
for  the  sake  of  argument,  we  admit  that  the  primary 
object  of  all  formal  education  is  the  "education"  of 
the  character-capacity  in  each  individual. 

Of  these  two,  the  first  has  to  do  with  the  college 
curriculum,  but  I  need  to  devote  little  time  to  this 
for  the  principle  has  already  been  developed  and 
applied  in  a  singularly  stimulating  and  lucid  book 
called  "The  Liberal  College,"  by  President  Meikle- 
john  of  Amherst,  to  which  I  beg  to  refer  you.  The 
scheme  is  a  remarkable  blending  of  the  prescribed 
and  the  elective  systems,  and  provides  for  the  fresh- 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  185 

man  year  five  compulsory  studies,  viz. :  Social  and 
Economic  Institutions,  Mathematics  and  Formal 
Logic,  Science,  English  and  Foreign  Languages ;  for 
the  sophomore  year  European  History,  Philosophy, 
Science,  Literature,  and  one  elective;  for  the  junior 
year  American  History,  History  of  Thought  and 
two  electives,  and  for  the  senior  year  one  required 
study,  Intellectual  and  Moral  Problems,  and  one 
elective,  the  latter,  which  takes  two-thirds  of  the 
student's  time,  must  be  a  continuation  of  one  of  the 
four  subjects  included  in  the  junior  year.  It  seems 
to  me  that  this  is  a  singularly  wise  programme,  since 
it  not  only  determines  the  few  studies  which  are 
fundamental,  and  imposes  them  on  the  student  in 
diminishing  number  as  he  advances  in  his  work,  but 
it  also  provides  for  that  freedom  of  choice  which 
permits  any  student  to  find  out  and  continue  the 
particular  line  along  which  his  inclinations  lead  him 
to  travel,  until  his  senior  year  is  chiefly  given  over 
to  the  fullest  possible  development  of  the  special 
subject.  The  fad  for  free  electives  all  along  the 
line  was  one  of  those  curious  phenomena,  both  hu- 
morous and  tragic,  that  grew  out  of  the  evolutionary 
philosophy  and  the  empirical  democracy  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  it  wrought  disaster,  while  the 
ironclad  curriculum  that  preceded  it  was  almost  as 
bad  along  an  opposite  line.  This  project  of  Dr. 
Meiklejohn's  seems  to  me  to  recognize  life  as  a  force 
and  to  base  itself  on  this  sure  foundation  instead 
of  on  the  shifting  sands  of  doctrinaire  theory,  and 
if  this  is  so  then  it  is  right. 

For  after  all  there  is  such  a  thing  as  life,  and  it  is 


l86   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT  PEACE 

more  potent  than  theory  as  it  also  has  a  way  of  dis- 
regarding or  even  smashing  the  machine.  It  is  this 
force  of  life  that  should  be  more  regarded  in  edu- 
cation, and  more  relied  upon.  It  is  the  living  in  a 
school  or  a  college  that  counts  more  than  a  curricu- 
lum; the  association  with  others,  students  and  teach- 
ers, the  communal  life,  the  common  adventures  and 
scrapes,  the  common  sports,  yes,  and  as  it  will  be 
sometime,  the  common  worship.  It  is  through  these 
that  life  works  and  character  develops,  and  to  this 
development  and  instigation  of  life  the  school  and 
college  should  work  more  assiduously,  minimizing 
for  the  moment  the  problems  of  curricula  and  ped- 
agogic methods.  If  I  am  right  in  this  there  is  no 
place  for  the  "correspondence  school,"  while  the 
college  or  university  that  numbers  its  students  by 
thousands  becomes  at  least  of  doubtful  value,  and 
perhaps  impossible.  In  any  case  it  seems  to  me  self- 
evident  that  a  college,  whatever  its  numbers,  must 
have,  as  its  primal  and  essential  units,  self-contained 
groups  of  not  more  than  150  students  segregated  in 
their  own  residential  quad,  with  its  common-room, 
refectory  and  chapel,  and  with  a  certain  number  of 
faculty  members  in  residence,  the  whole  being  united 
under  one  "head."  There  may  be  perhaps  no  rea- 
son why,  granting  this  unit  system,  these  should  not 
be  multiplied  in  number  until  the  whole  student  body 
is  as  great  as  that  of  a  western  state  university 
today,  but  to  me  the  idea  is  abhorrent  of  an  "uni- 
versity" with  five  or  ten  thousand  students  all  jostling 
together  in  one  inchoate  mass,  eating  in  numerical 
mobs,  assembling  in  social  "unions"  as  large  as  a 


EDUCATION    AND    ART  187 

metropolitan  hotel  and  almost  as  homelike,  or  taking 
refuge  for  safety  from  mere  numbers  in  clubs,  fra- 
ternities and  secret  societies.  A  college  such  as  this 
is  a  mob,  not  an  organism,  and  as  a  mob  it  ought 
to  be  put  down. 

I  said  at  the  outset  of  this  lecture  that  we  could 
not  lay  the  present  failure  of  civilization  to  the  doors 
of  education,  however  great  its  shortcomings,  for  the 
causes  lay  deeper  than  this.  I  maintain  that  this  is 
true ;  and  yet  formal  education  can  not  escape  scathe- 
less, for  it  has  failed  to  admit  this  decline  while 
acknowledging  the  claim  set  up  for  it  that  it  could 
and  would  achieve  this  end.  Certainly  it  will  incur 
a  heavy  responsibility  if  it  does  not  at  once  recognize 
the  fact  that  while  it  can  not  do  the  half  that  has 
been  claimed  for  it,  it  can  do  far  more  than  it  is 
doing  now,  and  that  in  a  very  large  degree  the  future 
does  depend  for  its  honour  or  its  degredation  on  the 
part  formal  education  is  to  perform  at  the  present 
crisis.  To  do  this  it  must  execute  a  volte  face  and 
confess  that  it  can  only  develop  inherent  potential, 
not  create  capacity,  and  that  the  primary  object  of 
its  activities  must  be  not  the  stall-feeding  of  intellect 
and  the  practical  preparation  for  a  business  career, 
but  the  fostering  and  the  building  up  of  the  personal 
character  that  denotes  the  Christian  gentleman.  I 
do  not  think  that  I  can  do  better  for  a  conclusion 
than  to  quote  from  the  "Philosophy  of  Education" 
by  the  late  Dr.  Thomas  Edward  Shields. 

"The  unchanging  aim  of  Christian  education  is, 
and  always  has  been,  to  put  the  pupil  into  possession 
of  a  body  of  truth  derived  from  nature  and  from 


1 88      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

Divine  Revelation,  from  the  concrete  work  of  man's 
hand  and  from  the  content  of  human  speech,  in  order 
to  bring  his  conduct  into  conformity  with  Christian 
ideals  and  with  the  standards  of  the  civilization  of 
his  day. 

"Christian  education,  therefore,  aims  at  trans- 
forming native  instincts  while  preserving  and  en- 
larging their  powers.  It  aims  at  bringing  the  flesh 
under  the  control  of  the  spirit.  It  draws  upon  the 
experience  and  the  wisdom  of  the  race,  upon  Divine 
Revelation  and  upon  the  power  of  Divine  grace, 
in  order  that  it  may  bring  the  conduct  of  the  indi- 
vidual into  conformity  with  Christian  ideals  and  with 
the  standards  of  the  civilization  of  the  day.  It  aims 
at  the  development  of  the  whole  man,  at  the  preser- 
vation of  unity  and  continuity  in  his  conscious  life; 
it  aims  at  transforming  man's  native  egotism  to  altru- 
ism; at  developing  the  social  side  of  his  nature  to 
such  an  extent  that  he  may  regard  all  men  as  his 
brothers ;  sharing  with  them  the  common  Fatherhood 
of  God.  In  one  word,  it  aims  at  transforming  a 
child  of  the  flesh  into  a  child  of  God." 


VII 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  ORGANIC  RELIGION 

TF  PHILOSOPHY  is  "the  science  of  the  totality 
of  things,"  and  "they  are  called  wise  who  put 
things  in  their  right  order  and  control  them  well," 
then  it  is  religion,  above  all  other  factors  and  poten- 
cies, that  enters  in  to  reveal  the  right  relationships 
and  standards  of  value,  and  to  contribute  the  re- 
demptive and  energizing  force  that  makes  pos- 
sible the  adequate  control  which  is  the  second  factor 
in  the  conduct  of  the  man  that  is  "called  wise." 
Philosophy  and  religion  are  not  to  be  confounded; 
religion  is  sufficient  in  itself  and  develops  its  own 
philosophy,  but  the  latter  is  not  sufficient  in  itself, 
and  when  it  assumes  the  functions  and  prerogatives 
of  religion,  it  brings  disaster. 

Religion  is  the  force  that  relates  action  to  life. 
Of  course  it  has  other  aspects,  higher  in  essence  and 
more  impalpable  in  quality,  but  it  is  this  first  aspect 
I  shall  deal  with,  because  I  am  not  now  speaking  of 
religion  as  a  purely  spiritual  power  but  only  of  its 
quality  as  the  great  ccordinater  of  human  action, 
the  power  that  establishes  a  right  ratio  of  values 
and  gives  the  capacity  for  right  control.  Whether 
we  accept  the  religion  of  the  Middle  Ages  or  not; 
whether  we  look  on  the  period  as  one  of  high  and 
edifying  Christian  civilization,  or  as  a  time  of  ignor- 
ance and  superstition,  we  are  bound  to  admit  that 

189 


190      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

society  in  its  physical,  intellectual  and  spiritual  as- 
pects was  highly  organized,  and  coordinated  after  a 
most  masterly  fashion.  It  was  more  nearly  an  unit, 
functioning  lucidly  and  consistently,  than  anything 
the  world  has  known  since  the  Roman  Empire.  What- 
ever its  defects,  lack  of  coherency  was  not  one  of 
them.  Life  was  not  divided  into  water-tight  com- 
partments, but  moved  on  as  a  consistent  whole. 
Failures  were  constant,  for  the  world  even  then 
was  made  up  of  men,  but  the  ideal  was  perfectly 
clear-cut,  the  principles  exactly  seen  and  explicitly 
formulated;  life  was  organic,  consistent,  highly  ar- 
ticulated, and  withal  as  full  of  the  passion  of  aspira- 
tion towards  an  ultimate  ideal  as  was  the  Gothic 
cathedral  which  is  its  perfect  exemplar. 

The  reason  for  this  coherency  and  consistency 
was  the  universal  recognition  and  acceptance  of  re- 
ligion as  the  one  energizing  and  standardizing  force 
in  life,  the  particular  kind  of  religion  that  then  pre- 
vailed, and  the  organic  power  which  this  religion 
had  established;  that  is  to  say,  the  Church  as  an 
operative  institution.  So  long  as  this  condition  ob- 
tained, which  was,  roughly  speaking,  for  three  hun- 
dred years,  from  the  "Truce  of  God"  in  1041  to 
the  beginning  of  the  "Babylonian  Captivity"  of  the 
Papacy  at  Avignon  in  1309,  there  was  substantial 
unity  in  life,  but  as  soon  as  it  was  shaken,  this  unity 
began  to  break  up  into  a  diversity  that  accomplished 
a  condition  of  chaos,  at  and  around  the  opening  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  which  only  yielded  to  the 
absolutism  of  the  Renaissance,  destined  in  its  turn 
to  break  up  into  a  second  condition  of  chaos  under 


ORGANIC    RELIGION 

the  influence  of  industrialism,  Puritanism  and  revo- 
lution. 

Since  the  accomplishment  of  the  Reformation, 
this  function  of  religion  has  never  been  restored  to 
society  in  any  degree  comparable  with  that  which 
it  maintained  during  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Coun- 
ter-Reformation preserved  the  institution  itself  in 
the  Mediterranean  lands,  but  it  did  not  restore  its 
old  spiritual  power  in  its  entirety.  Amongst  the 
peoples  that  accepted  the  Reformation  the  new 
religion  assumed  for  a  time  the  authority  of  the 
old,  but  the  centrifugal  force  inherent  in  its  nature 
soon  split  the  reformed  churches  into  myriad  frag- 
ments, so  destroying  their  power  of  action,  while 
the  abandonment  of  the  sacramental  system  pro- 
gressively weakened  their  dynamic  force.  As  it  had 
from  the  first  compounded,  under  compulsion,  with 
absolutism  and  tyranny,  so  in  the  end  it  compromised 
with  the  cruelty,  selfishness,  injustice  and  avarice 
of  industrialism,  and  when  finally  this  achieved 
world  supremacy,  and  physical  science,  materialistic 
philosophy  and  social  revolution  entered  the  field  as 
co-combatants,  it  no  longer  possessed  a  sufficient 
original  power  either  of  resistance  or  of  re-creative 
energy.. 

Religion  is  in  itself  not  the  reaction  of  the  human 
mind,  under  process  of  evolution,  to  certain  physical 
stimuli  of  experience  and  phenomena,  it  is  super- 
natural in  that  its  source  is  outside  nature;  it  is  a 
manifestation  of  the  grace  of  God,  and  as  such  it 
cannot  be  brought  into  existence  by  any  conscious 
action  of  man  or  by  any  of  his  works.  On  the 


192   TOWARDS  THE  GREAT  PEACE 

other  hand,  it  can  be  fostered  and  preserved,  or 
debilitated  and  dispersed,  by  these  human  acts  and 
institutions,  and  in  the  same  way  man  himself  may 
be  made  more  receptive  to  this  divine  grace,  or 
turned  against  it,  by  the  same  agencies,  the  teach- 
ings of  Dr.  John  Calvin  to  the  contrary  notwith- 
standing. This  is  part  of  the  Catholic  doctrine  of 
free-will  as  opposed  to  the  sixteenth-century  dogma 
of  predestination  which,  distorted  and  degraded 
from  the  doctrine  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Augustine, 
played  so  large  a  part  in  that  transformation  of 
the  Christian  religion  from  which  we  have  suffered 
ever  since.  God  offers  the  free  gift  of  religion  and 
of  faitK  to  every  child  of  man,  but  the  recipient 
must  cooperate  if  the  gift  is  to  be  accepted.  The 
Church,  that  is  to  say,  the  supernatural  organism 
that  is  given  material  form  in  time  and  space  and 
operates  through  human  agencies,  is  for  this  reason 
subject  to  great  vicissitudes,  now  rising  to  the  high- 
est level  of  righteousness  and  power,  now  sinking 
into  depths  of  unrighteousness  and  impotence. 
Nothing,  however,  can  affect  the  validity  and  the 
potency  of  its  supernatural  content  and  its  super- 
natural channels  of  grace.  These  remain  unaffected, 
whether  the  human  organism  is  exalted  or  debased. 
The  sacraments  and  devotions  and  practices  of  wor- 
ship, are  in  themselves  as  potent  if  a  Borgia  sits  in 
the  chair  of  St.  Peter  as  they  are  if  a  Hildebrand, 
and  Innocent  III  or  a  Leo  XIII  is  the  occupant; 
nevertheless  every  weakening  or  degradation  of  the 
visible  organism  affects,  and  inevitably,  the  attitude 
of  men  towards  the  thing  itself,  and  when  this  de- 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  193 

clension  sets  in  and  continues  unchecked,  the  result 
is,  first,  a  falling  away  and  a  discrediting  of  religion 
that  sometimes  results  in  general  abandonment,  and 
second — and  after  a  time — a  new  outpouring  of 
spiritual  power  that  results  in  complete  regenera- 
tion. The  Church,  in  its  human  manifestation,  is  as 
subject  to  the  rythmical  rise  and  fall  of  the  currents 
of  life  as  is  the  social  organism  or  man  himself, 
therefore  it  is  not  to  be  expected  that  it  will  pursue 
a  course  of  even  exaltation,  or  maintain  a  status 
that  is  impeccable. 

Now  the  working  out  of  this  law  had  issue  in  a 
great  decline  that  began  with  the  Exile  at  Avignon 
and  was  not  terminated  until  the  Council  of  Trent. 
In  the  depth  of  this  catastrophe  came  the  natural  and 
righteous  revolt  against  the  manifold  and  intoler- 
able abuses,  but,  like  all  reforming  movements  that 
take  on  a  revolutionary  character,  reform  and  regen- 
eration were  soon  forgotten  in  the  unleashed  pas- 
sion for  destruction  and  innovation,  while  the  new 
doctrines  of  emancipation  from  authority,  and  the 
right  of  private  judgment  in  religious  matters,  were 
seized  upon  by  sovereigns  chafing  under  ecclesiastical 
control,  as  a  providential  means  of  effecting  and 
establishing  their  own  independence,  and  so  given 
an  importance,  and  an  ultimate  victory  that,  in  and 
by  themselves,  they  could  hardly  have  achieved.  In 
the  end  it  was  the  secular  and  autocratic  state  that 
reaped  the  victory,  not  the  reformed  religion,  which 
was  first  used  as  a  tool  and  then  abandoned  to  its 
inevitable  break-up  into  numberless  antagonistic 
sects,  some  of  them  retaining  a  measure  of  the  old 


194      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

faith  and  polity,  others  representing  all  the  illiteracy 
and  uncouthness  and  fanaticism  of  the  new  racial 
and  social  factors  as  these  emerged  at  long  last 
from  the  submergence  and  the  oppression  that  had 
been  their  fate  with  the  dissolution  of  Mediaevalism. 
Meanwhile  the  Roman  Church  which  stood  rigidly 
for  historic  Christianity  and  had  been  preserved  by 
the  Counter-Reformation  to  the  Mediterranean 
states,  continued  bound  to  the  autocratic  and  highly 
centralized  administrative  system  that  had  become 
universal  among  secular  powers  during  the  decadence 
of  Medievalism,  and  from  which  it  had  taken  its 
colour,  and  it  kept  even  pace  for  the  future  with 
the  progressive  intensification  of  this  absolutism. 
This  was  natural,  though  in  many  respects  deplor- 
able, and  it  can  be  safely  said  that  adverse  criticism 
of  the  Catholic  Church  today  is  based  only  on  quali- 
ties it  acquired  during  the  period  of  Renaissance 
autocracy  and  revived  paganism;  qualities  that  do 
not  affect  its  essential  integrity  or  authority  but  do 
misrepresent  it  before  men,  and  work  as  a  handicap 
in  its  adaptability  and  in  its  work  of  winning  souls 
to  Christianity  and  re-establishing  the  unity  of 
Christendom.  Fortunately  this  very  immobility  has 
saved  it  from  a  surrender  to  the  new  forces  that  were 
developed  in  secular  society  during  the  last  two  cen- 
turies, as  it  did  yield  to  the  compulsion  of  those 
that  were  let  loose  in  the  two  that  preceded  them. 
It  has  never  subjected  questions  of  faith  and  morals 
to  popular  vote  nor  has  it  determined  discipline  by 
parliamentary  practice  under  a  well  developed  party 
system,  therefore  it  has  preserved  its  unity,  its  in- 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  195 

tegrity  and  its  just  standard  of  comparative  values. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  has  held  so  stubbornly  to  some 
of  the  ill  ways  of  Renaissance  centralization,  which 
are  in  no  sense  consonant  with  its  character,  that  it 
has  failed  to  retard  the  constant  movement  of  soci- 
ety away  from  a  life  wherein  religion  was  the 
dominating  and  coordinating  force,  while  at  the 
present  crisis  it  is  as  yet  hardly  more  able  than  a 
divisive  Protestantism  to  offer  the  regenerative  en- 
ergy that  a  desperate  case  demands. 

I  do  not  know  whether  secular  society  is  respon- 
sible for  the  decadence  of  religion,  or  the  decadence 
of  religion  is  responsible  for  the  failure  of  secular 
society,  nor  does  it  particularly  matter.  What  I  am 
concerned  with  is  a  condition  amounting  to  almost 
complete  severance  between  the  two,  and  how  we 
may  "knit  up  this  ravelled  sleeve"  of  life  so  that 
once  more  we  may  have  an  wholesome  unity  in  place 
of  the  present  disunity;  for  until  this  is  accomplished, 
until  once  more  religion  enters  into  the  very  marrow 
of  social  being,  enters  with  all  its  powers  of  judg- 
ment and  determination  and  co-ordination  and  crea- 
tive energy,  just  so  long  shall  we  seek  in  vain  for 
our  way  out  into  the  Great  Peace  of  righteous  and 
consistent  living. 

Of  course  there  is  only  one  sure  way,  one  method 
by  which  this,  and  all  our  manifold  difficulties,  can  be 
resolved,  and  that  is  through  the  achieved  enlight- 
enment of  the  individual.  As  I  have  insisted  in 
each  of  these  lectures,  salvation  is  not  through  ma- 
chinery but  through  the  individual  soul,  for  it  is 
life  itself  that  is  operating,  not  the  instruments  that 


196      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

man  devises  in  his  ingenuity.  Yet  the  mechanism 
is  of  great  value  for  even  itself  may  give  aid  and 
stimulus  in  the  personal  regenerative  process,  or, 
on  the  contrary,  it  may  deter  this  by  the  confusing 
and  misleading  influences  it  creates.  Therefore  we 
are  bound  to  regard  material  reforms,  and  of  these, 
as  they  suggest  themselves  in  the  field  of  organized 
religion,  I  propose  to  speak. 

No  one  will  deny  the  progressive  alienation  of 
life  from  religion  that  has  developed  since  the  Re- 
formation and  has  now  reached  a  point  of  almost 
complete  severance.  Religion,  once  a  public  pre- 
occupation, has  now  withdrawn  to  the  fastnesses  of 
the  individual  soul,  when  it  has  not  vanished  alto- 
gether, as  it  has  in  the  case  of  the  majority  of  citi- 
zens of  this  Republic  in  so  far  as  definite  faith, 
explicit  belief,  application,  practice  and  action  are 
concerned.  In  the  hermitage  that  some  still  make 
within  themselves,  religion  still  lives  on  as  ardent 
and  as  potent  and  as  regenerative  as  before,  but  in 
general,  if  we  are  to  judge  from  the  conduct  of 
recent  life,  it  is  held,  when  it  is  accepted  at  all,  with 
a  certain  formality,  and  is  neither  cherished  with 
conviction  nor  allowed  to  interfere  with  the  every- 
day life  of  the  practical  man.  As  a  great  English 
statesman  remarked  in  the  last  century,  "No  one  has 
a  higher  regard  for  religion  than  I,  but  when  it 
comes  to  intruding  it  into  public  affairs,  well, 
really !" 

The  situation  is  one  not  unnaturally  to  be  antici- 
pated, for  the  whole  course  of  religious,  secular  and 
sociological  development  during  the  last  few  cen- 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  197 

turies  has  been  such  as  to  make  any  other  result 
improbable.  I  already  have  tried  to  show  what  seem 
to  me  the  destructive  factors,  secularly  and  socio- 
logically. As  for  the  factors  in  religious  develop- 
ment that  have  worked  towards  the  same  end,  they 
are,  first,  the  shattering  of  the  unity  of  Christen- 
dom, with  the  denial  by  those  of  the  reformed  re- 
ligions of  the  existence  of  a  Church,  one,  visible  and 
Catholic  and  infallible  in  matters  of  faith  and 
morals;  second,  the  denial  of  sacramental  philos- 
ophy and  abandonment  of  the  sacraments  (or  all 
but  one,  or  at  most  two  of  them)  as  instruments  of 
Divine  Grace;  third,  the  surrender  of  the  various 
religious  organisms  to  the  compulsion  of  the  ma- 
terialistic, worldly  and  opportunist  factors  in  the 
secular  life  of  modernism.  The  truths  correspond- 
ing to  these  three  errors  are,  Unity,  Sacramentalism 
and  Unworldliness.  Until  these  three  things  are 
won  back,  Christianity  will  fail  of  its  full  mission, 
society  will  continue  aimless,  uncoordinate  and  on 
the  verge  of  disaster,  life  itself  will  lack  the  mean- 
ing and  the  reality  that  give  both  joy  in  the  living 
and  victory  in  achievement,  while  the  individual  man 
will  be  gravely  handicapped  in  the  process  of  per- 
sonal regeneration. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  frame  a  general  indictment 
against  persons  and  movements,  but  rather  to  sug- 
gest certain  ways  and  means  of  possible  recovery, 
and  in  general  I  shall  try  to  confine  myself  to  that 
form  of  organized  religion  to  which  I  personally 
adhere,  that  is  to  say,  the  Anglican  or  Episcopal 
Church,  partly  because  of  my  better  knowledge  of 


198   TOWARDS  THE  GREAT  PEACE 

its  conditions,  and  partly  because  whatever  is  said 
may  in  most  cases  be  equally  well  applied  to  the 
Protestant  denominations. 

The  unity  of  the  Church.  It  is  no  longer  neces- 
sary to  demonstrate  this  fundamental  necessity. 
The  old  days  of  the  nineteenth  century  are  gone, 
those  days  when  honest  men  vociferously  acclaimed 
as  honourable  and  glorious  "the  dissidence  of  dis- 
sent and  the  protestantism  of  the  Protestant  re- 
ligion." Everyone  knows  now,  everyone,  that  is, 
that  accepts  Christianity,  that  disunion  is  disgrace 
if  not  a  very  palpable  sin.  The  desire  for  a  re- 
stored unity  is  almost  universal,  but  every  effort  in 
this  direction,  whatever  its  source,  meets  with  failure, 
and  the  reason  would  appear  to  be  that  the  ap- 
proach is  made  from  the  wrong  direction.  In  every 
case  the  individual  is  left  alone,  his  personal  beliefs 
and  practices  are,  he  is  assured,  jealously  guarded; 
all  that  is  asked  is  that  some  mechanical  amalga- 
mation, some  official  approximation  shall  be  effected. 
Free  interchange  of  pulpits,  a  system  of  reciprocal 
re-ordination,  a  "merger"  of  church  property  and 
parsons,  an  "irreducible  minimum"  of  credal  insis- 
tencies these,  and  others  even  more  ingeniously 
compromising,  are  the  well-meaning  schemes  that 
are  put  forward,  and  in  the  process  one  point  after 
another  is  surrendered,  as  a  quid  pro  quo  for  the 
formal  and  technical  capitulation  of  some  other 
religious  group. 

It  is  demonstrable  that  even  if  these  well-mean- 
ing approximations  were  received  with  favour — and 
thus  far  nothing  of  the  kind  has  appeared — the 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  199 

result,  so  far  as  essential  unity  is  concerned,  would 
be  nil.  There  is  a  perfectly  definite  line  of  division 
between  the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant,  and  until 
this  line  is  erased  there  is  no  possible  unity,  even 
if  this  were  only  official  and  administrative.  The 
Catholic  (and  in  respect  to  this  one  particular  point 
I  include  under  this  title  members  of  the  Roman, 
Anglican  and  Eastern  Communions)  maintains  and 
practices  the  sacramental  system;  the  Protestant 
does  not.  There  is  no  reason,  there  is  indeed  grave 
danger  of  sacrilege,  in  a  joint  reception  of  the  Holy 
Communion  by  those  who  look  on  it  as  a  mere  sym- 
bol and  those  who  accept  it  as  the  very  Body  and 
Blood  of  Christ.  Protestant  clergy  are  urged  to 
accept  ordination  at  the  hands  of  Anglican  bishops, 
but  the  plea  is  made  on  the  ground  of  order,  ex- 
pediency, and  the  preservation  of  tradition;  whereas 
the  Apostolical  succession  was  established  and  en- 
forced not  for  these  reasons  but  in  order  that  the 
grace  of  God,  originally  imparted  by  Christ  Him- 
self, may  be  continued  through  the  lines  He  or- 
dained, for  the  making  and  commissioning  of  priests 
who  have  power  to  serve  as  the  channels  for  the 
accomplishing  of  the  divine  miracle  of  the  Holy 
Eucharist,  to  offer  the  eternal  Sacrifice  of  the  Body 
and  Blood  of  Christ  for  the  quick  and  the  dead,  and 
to  remit  the  penalty  of  sins  through  confession  and 
absolution.  If  the  laying  on  of  hands  by  the  bishop 
were  solely  a  matter  of  tradition  and  discipline, 
neither  Rome  nor  the  Anglican  Communion  would 
be  justified  in  holding  to  it  as  a  condition  of  unity; 
if  it  is  for  the  transmission  of  the  Holy  Ghost  for 


200      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

the  making  of  a  Catholic  priest,  with  all  that  im- 
plies and  has  always  implied,  then  it  is  wrong,  even 
in  the  interests  of  a  formal  unity,  to  offer  it  to 
those  who  believe  neither  in  the  priesthood  nor  in 
the  sacraments  in  the  Catholic  and  historic  sense. 

The  conversion  of  the  individual  must  take  prece- 
dence of  corporate  action  of  any  sort.  When  the 
secularist  comes  to  believe  in  the  Godhead  of  Christ 
he  will  unite  himself  with  the  rest  of  the  faithful  in 
a  Church  polity,  but  he  will  not  do  this,  he  has  too 
much  self-respect,  simply  because  he  is  told  by  some 
ardent  but  minimizing  parson  that  he  does  not  have 
to  believe  in  the  Divinity  of  Christ  in  order  to  "join 
the  church."  When  a  Protestant  comes  to  accept 
the  sacramental  system,  to  desire  to  participate  in 
the  Holy  Sacrifice  of  the  altar,  to  make  confession 
of  his  sins  and  receive  absolution,  and  to  nourish 
and  develop  his  spiritual  nature  by  the  use  of  the 
devotions  that  have  grown  up  during  nineteen  hun- 
dred years,  he  will  renounce  his  Protestantism, 
when  his  self-respect  would  not  permit  him  to  do 
this  just  because  he  had  been  assured  that  he  need 
not  really  change  any  of  his  previous  beliefs  in 
order  to  ally  himself  with  a  Church  that  had  better 
architecture  and  a  more  artistic  ceremonial,  and 
locally  a  higher  social  standing.  When  Anglicans 
or  the  Eastern  Orthodox  come  to  believe  that  a 
vernacular  liturgy  and  a  married  priesthood  and 
provincial  autonomy  are  of  less  importance  than 
Catholic  unity,  and  when  Roman  Catholics  can  see 
that  the  same  is  of  greater  moment  than  a  rigid 
preservation  of  Renaissance  centralization  and  a 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  2OI 

cold  "non  possumus"  in  the  matter  of  Orders,  then 
the  way  will  be  open  for  the  reunion  of  the  West, 
where  this  operation  cannot  be  affected  by  formal 
negotiations  looking  towards  some  form  of  legal- 
istic concordat. 

The  evil  heritage  of  the  sixteenth  century  is  still 
heavy  upon  us,  and  this  heritage  is  one  of  jealousy 
and  hate,  not  of  charity  and  toleration.  It  is  an 
heritage  of  legalism  and  technicalities,  of  self-will 
and  individualism,  of  shibboleths  that  have  become 
a  dead  letter,  of  prejudices  that  are  fostered  on  dis- 
torted history  and  the  propaganda  of  the  self-seek- 
ing and  the  vain.  The  spirit  of  Christ  is  not  in  it, 
but  the  malice  of  Satan  working  upon  the  better 
natures  of  men  and  justifying  in  the  name  of  con- 
science and  principle  what  are  frequently  the  work- 
ings of  self-will  and  pride  and  intellectual  obsession. 
This  is  the  tragedy  of  it  all;  that  Protestants  and 
Anglicans  and  Roman  Catholics  are,  so  far  as  the 
majority  are  concerned,  honestly  convinced  that  they 
are  right  in  maintaining  their  own  divisiveness;  in 
perpetuating  an  hundred  Protestant  sects  on  the 
basis  of  some  variation  in  the  form  of  baptism  or 
church  government  or  the  method  of  conversion; 
in  splitting  up  the  Catholic  Church  because  of  a 
thousand  year  old  disagreement  as  to  a  clause  in 
the  Creed  which  has  a  technical  and  theological 
significance  only,  or  because  one  sector  is  alleged  to 
have  added  unjustifiably  to  the  Faith  while  the 
other  is  alleged  to  have  unjustifiably  taken  away. 
Self-will  and  lack  of  charity,  not  love  and  the  com- 
mon will  as  these  are  revealed  to  the  world  through 


202      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

the  Divine  Will  of  Christ,  are  working  here.  The 
momentary  triumph  of  evil  over  good,  the  passing 
victory  that  yet  means  the  banishment  of  religion 
from  the  world,  and  the  assurance  of  disaster  still 
greater  than  that  which  is  now  upon  us  unless 
every  man  bends  all  his  energies  to  the  task  of 
making  the  will  of  God  prevail,  first  in  himself,  and 
so  in  the  secular  and  ecclesiastical  societies  in  and 
through  which  he  plays  his  part  in  the  life  of  the 
world — these  are  the  fruits  of  a  divided  Christen- 
dom. 

I  honestly  believe  that  the  first  real  step  towards 
reunion  would  be  a  prompt  cessation  of  the  whole 
process  of  criticism,  vilification  and  abuse,  one  of 
the  other,  that  now  marks  the  attitude  of  what  are 
known  as  "church  periodicals."  Roman,  Anglican, 
Protestant,  are  all  alike,  for  all  maintain  a  consis- 
tent slanging  of  each  other.  I  have  in  mind  in 
particular  weekly  religious  papers  in  the  United 
States  which  maintain  departments  almost  wholly 
made  up  of  attacks  on  Roman  Catholicism  and  the 
derision  of  incidents  of  bad  taste  or  illiteracy  in  the 
Protestant  denominations,  and  others  which  lose  no 
opportunity  to  discredit  or  abuse  the  Episcopal 
Church  and  the  Protestant  denominations,  and  fin- 
ally a  curiously  malevolent  newspaper  representing 
the  worst  type  of  Protestant  ignorance  and  preju- 
dice, which  exists  on  its  libelous  and  indecent  and 
dishonest  assaults  on  Catholicism  wherever  it  may 
be  found.  These  are  not  alone,  for  the  condition  of 
ascerbity  and  nagging  is  practically  universal.  It 
merely  echoes  the  pulpit  and  a  portion  of  the  general 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  203 

public.  We  all  know  of  the  so  called  "church" 
in  Boston  that  is  the  forum  of  "escaped  nuns"  and 
"unfrocked  priests,"  but  in  many  places  of  better 
repute  the  sermon  that  bitterly  attacks  Christian 
Science,  or  "High  Church  Episcopalianism,"  or  the 
errors  of  Protestantism  generally,  or  the  "usurpa- 
tions of  Rome"  is  by  no  means  unknown,  while  else- 
where than  in  Ireland,  the  public  as  a  whole  finds 
much  pleasure  in  bating  any  religion  that  happens 
to  differ  from  its  own, — or  offends  its  sense  of  the 
uselessness  of  all  religion.  Let  us  have  a  new 
"Truce  of  God,"  and  for  the  space  of  a  year  let 
all  clergy,  lecturers,  newspapers,  religious  journals, 
and  private  individuals,  totally  abstain  from  sneer- 
ing and  ill-natured  attacks  on  other  religions  and 
their  followers.  Could  this  be  accomplished  a 
greater  step  would  be  taken  towards  the  reunion  of 
Christendom  than  could  be  achieved  by  any  number 
of  conferences,  commissions,  councils  and  conven- 
tions. 

It  was  the  iwill  and  the  intent  of  Christ  "that 
they  all  may  be  one,  that  the  world  may  believe  that 
Thou  hast  sent  Me,"  and  in  disunity  we  deny  Christ. 
There  is  no  consideration  of  inheritance,  of  personal 
taste,  of  interests,  of  intellectual  persuasion  that 
can  stand  in  the  way  of  an  affirmative  answer  to  this 
prayer.  Every  man  who  calls  himself  a  Christian 
and  yet  is  not  praying  and  working  to  break  down 
the  self-will  and  the  self-conceit  that,  so  often  under 
the  masquerade  of  conscience,  hold  him  back  from 
a  return,  even  if  it  is  only  step  by  step,  to  the  origi- 
nal unity  of  the  Catholic  Faith,  is  guilty  of  sin,  while 


204      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

it  is  sin  of  an  even  graver  degree  that  stands  to  the 
account  of  those  who  consciously  work  to  perpetuate 
the  division  that  now  exists. 

Sacramentalism.  The  stumbling  block,  the  ap- 
parently impassable  barrier,  is  that  which  was 
erected  when  belief  was  substituted  for  faith;  it  is 
the  intellectualizing  of  religion  that  has  brought 
about  the  present  failure  of  Christianity  as  a  vital 
and  controling  force  in  man  and  in  society.  The 
danger  revealed  itself  even  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and 
through  perhaps  the  greatest  Christian  philosopher, 
and  certainly  one  of  the  most  commanding  intel- 
lects, the  world  has  known :  St.  Thomas  Aquinas. 
In  his  case,  and  that  of  the  others  of  his  time,  the 
intellect  was  still  directed  by  spiritual  forces,  the 
chiefest  of  which  was  faith,  therefore  the  inherent 
danger  in  the  intellectualizing  process  did  not  clearly 
reveal  itself  or  come  into  actual  operation,  but 
with  the  Renaissance  and  the  Reformation  it  stood 
boldly  forth,  and  since  then  as  mind  increased  in 
its  dominion  faith  declined.  The  Reformation,  in 
all  its  later  phases,  that  is  to  say,  after  it  ceased 
to  be  a  protest  against  moral  defects  and  admini- 
strative abuses  and  became  a  revolutionary  inven- 
tion of  new  dogmas  and  practices,  was  the  result 
of  clever,  stupid  or  perverse  minds  working  over- 
time on  religious  problems  which  could  not  be  solved 
or  even  apprehended  by  the  intellect,  whether  it 
was  that  of  an  acute  and  highly  trained  master  such 
as  Calvin,  or  that  of  any  one  of  the  hundred  found- 
ers of  less  savage  but  more  curious  and  uncouth 
types  of  "reformed  religion." 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  205 

What  we  need  now  for  the  recovery  and  re- 
establishment  of  Christianity  is  not  so  much  in- 
creased belief  as  it  is  a  renewed  faith;  faith  in 
Christ,  faith  in  His  doctrine,  faith  in  His  Church. 
We  lost  this  faith  when  we  abandoned  the  sacra- 
ments and  sacramentalism  as  superstitions,  or  re- 
tained some  of  them  in  form  and  as  symbols  while 
denying  to  them  all  supernatural  power.  If  we 
would  aid  the  individual  soul  to  regain  this  lost 
faith  we  could  do  no  better  than  to  restore  the 
seven  sacraments  of  the  historic  Christian  faith, 
and  Christian  Church  to  the  place  they  once  held 
for  all  Christians,  and  still  hold  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church,  the  Eastern  Orthodox  Churches 
and  (with  limitations)  in  the  Anglican  Church. 
Faith  begets  faith;  faith  in  Christ  brings  faith  in 
the  sacraments,  and  faith  in  the  sacraments  brings 
faith  in  Christ. 

It  is  disbelief  in  the  efficacy  of  the  sacraments  and 
in  the  sacramental  principle  in  life  that  is  the  es- 
sential barrier  between  Protestanism  and  Catholic- 
ism, and  until  this  barrier  is  dissolved  there  can 
be  neither  formal  unity  nor  unity  by  compromise. 
This  is  already  widely  recognized,  and  as  well  the 
actual  loss  that  comes  with  the  denial  and  abandon- 
ment of  the  sacraments.  There  is  in  the  Presbyter- 
ian church  of  Scotland  a  strong  tendency  towards 
a  reassertion  of  the  full  sacramental  doctrine;  the 
"Free  Catholic"  movement  throughout  Great  Bri- 
tain is  made  up  of  Congregationalists,  Methodists, 
Baptists,  and  other  representatives  of  Evangelical 
Protestantism,  and  it  is  working  unreservedly  for 


206   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT   PEACE 

the  recovery  and  application  of  all  the  Catholic  sac- 
raments, with  the  devotions  and  ritual  that  go  with 
them.  Dr.  Orchard,  the  head,  and  a  Congregational 
minister,  maintains  in  London  a  church  where,  as  a 
Methodist  member  of  the  "Free  Catholic"  organi- 
zation wrote  me  the  other  day,  "the  Blessed  Sac- 
rament is  perpetually  reserved  and  'High  Mass'  is 
celebrated  on  Sundays  with  the  full  Catholic  cere- 
monial." In  my  own  practice  of  architecture  I  am 
constantly  providing  Presbyterian,  Congregational, 
and  even  Unitarian  churches,  by  request,  with  chan- 
cels containing  altars  properly  vested  and  orna- 
mented with  crosses  and  candles,  while  the  almost 
universal  demand  is  for  church  edifices  that  shall  ap- 
proach as  nearly  as  possible  in  appearance  to  the 
typical  Catholic  church  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Of 
course  some  of  this  is  due  to  a  revived  instinct  for 
beauty,  that  almost  sacramental  quality  in  life  which 
was  ruthlessly  destroyed  by  Protestanism,  and  also 
to  a  renewed  sense  of  the  value  of  symbol  and  ritual; 
but  back  of  it  all  is  the  growing  consciousness  that, 
as  Dr.  Newman  Smythe  says,  Protestantism  has  de- 
finitely failed,  or  at  least  become  superannuated; 
that  the  essence  of  religion  is  spiritual  not  in- 
tellectual, affirmative  not  negative,  and  that  the 
only  measure  of  safety  lies  in  a  return  towards,  if 
not  actually  to,  the  Catholic  faith  and  practice  from 
which  the  old  revolt  was  affected.  It  is  a  movement 
both  significant  and  full  of  profound  encouragement. 
Here  then  are  two  tendencies  that  surely  show 
the  way  and  demand  encouragement  and  further- 
ance; recovery  of  the  sense  of  Christian  unity  in 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  207 

Christ  and  through  an  united  Catholic  Church,  and 
the  re-acceptance  of  sacramentalism  as  the  expres- 
sion of  that  faith  and  as  the  method  of  that  Church. 
I  feel  very  strongly  that  wherever  these  tendencies 
show  themselves  they  must  be  acclaimed  and  cher- 
ished. The  Protestant  denominations  must  be  aided 
in  every  way  in  their  process  of  recovery  of  the 
good  things  once  thrown  away;  Episcopalians  must 
be  persuaded  that  nothing  can  be  wrong  that  leads 
souls  to  Christ,  and  that  therefore  they  must  cease 
their  opposition  to  Reservation  of  the  Blessed  Sac- 
rament explicitly  for  adoration,  to  such  devotions 
as  Benediction  and  the  Rosary  simply  because  they 
have  not  explicit  Apostolic  sanction,  or  to  vestments, 
incense  and  holy  water  because  certain  proscriptive 
laws  passed  four  hundred  years  ago  in  England 
have  never  been  repealed.  Above  all  is  it  neces- 
sary that  the  Episcopal  Church  should  declare  itself 
formally  for  the  reinstitution  of  the  seven  Catholic 
sacraments,  with  the  Mass  as  the  one  supreme  act 
of  worship,  obligatory  as  the  chief  service  on  Sun- 
days and  Holy  Days,  and  both  as  communion  and 
as  sacrifice.  In  this  connection  there  is  one  reform 
that  would  I  think  be  more  effective  than  any  other, 
(except  the  exaltation  of  the  Holy  Eucharist  itself) 
and  that  is  the  complete  cessation  of  the  practice  of 
commissioning  lay  readers  and  using  them  for  mis- 
sion work  and  clerical  assistance.  A  mission  can  be 
established  and  made  fruitful  only  on  the  basis  of 
the  sacraments,  and  chiefly  on  those  of  the  Holy 
Eucharist  and  Penance.  It  is  not  enough  to  send 
a  zealous  and  well  intentioned  layman  to  "a  prom- 


208   TOWARDS   THE   GREAT   PEACE 

ising  mission  field"  in  order  that  he  may  read  Morn- 
ning  and  Evening  Prayer  and  some  sermon  already 
published.  What  is  needed  is  a  priest  to  say  Mass 
and  hear  confessions,  and  nothing  else  will  serve 
as  a  substitute.  How  this  is  to  be  accomplished, 
now  when  the  candidates  for  Holy  Orders  are  con- 
stantly falling  off  in  number,  with  no  immediate 
prospect  of  recovery,  is  a  question.  Perhaps  we  may 
learn  something  from  the  old  custom  of  ordaining 
"Mass  priests,"  without  cure  of  souls  and  with  a 
commission  to  celebrate  the  Holy  Mysteries  even 
while  they  continue  their  own  secular  work  in  the 
world.  For  my  own  part  I  am  persuaded  that  the 
best  solution  lies  in  the  establishing  of  diocesan  mon- 
asteries where  men  may  take  vows  for  short  terms, 
and,  during  the  period  of  these  vows,  remain  at 
the  orders  of  the  bishop  to  go  out  at  any  time  and 
anywhere  in  the  diocese  and  to  do  such  temporary  or 
periodical  mission  work  as  he  may  direct. 

Unworldliness :  I  have  referred  to  the  great  fall- 
ing off  in  the  number  of  candidates  for  the  priest- 
hood in  the  Episcopal  Church;  the  same  phenomenon 
is  apparent  in  all  the  Protestant  denominations,  so  far 
as  I  know,  but  it  has  not  shown  itself  in  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church.  This  defection  parallels  the  fall- 
ing-off  of  membership  in  the  various  churches  (ex- 
cept again  the  Roman  Catholic)  in  proportion  to  the 
increase  in  population.  We  are  told  that  the  dimin- 
ution of  the  ministry  is  due  to  the  starvation  wages 
that  are  paid  in  the  vast  majority  of  cases,  and  of 
course  it  is  true  that  where  a  married  clergy  is  al- 
lowed, men  who  believe  they  have  a  calling  both  to 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  209 

ministerial  and  to  domestic  life  will  think  twice  be- 
fore they  follow  the  call  of  the  first  when  the  pecun- 
iary returns  are  such  as  to  make  the  second  impos- 
sible, which  is,  generally  speaking,  the  situation  to- 
day. To  obviate  this  difficulty  many  religious  bodies 
have  recently  established  pension  funds,  but  even  this 
form  of  clerical  insurance,  together  with  the  increase 
that  has  been  effected  in  clerical  stipends,  has  shown 
no  results  in  an  increase  of  students  in  theological 
seminaries  and  in  candidates  for  Orders.  The  man 
who  has  enough  of  faith  in  God  and  a  strong 
enough  call  to  the  ministry  of  Christ,  will  answer  the 
call  even  if  he  does  think  twice  before  doing  so. 
The  trouble  lies,  I  believe,  in  the  very  lack  of  faith 
and  in  a  failure  of  confidence  in  organized  religion 
largely  brought  about  by  organized  religion  itself 
through  the  methods  it  has  pursued  during  the  last 
two  or  three  generations.  There  is  a  widespread  be- 
lief that  it  is  compromising  with  the  world;  that  it 
is  playing  fast  and  loose  with  faith  and  discipline 
in  a  vain  opportunism  that  voids  it  of  spiritual 
power.  Even  where  distrust  does  not  reach  this  dis- 
astrous conclusion,  there  is  a  growing  feeling  of  re- 
pugnance to  the  methods  now  being  adopted  in  high 
quarters  to  "sell  religion"  to  the  public,  as  is  the 
phrase  which  is  sufficient  in  itself  to  explain  the  falling 
away  that  now  seems  to  be  in  process.  The  attempt 
to  win  unwilling  support  by  the  methods  of  the 
"institutional  church,"  the  rampant  advertising,  so 
frequently  under  the  management  of  paid  "publicity 
agents";  the  setting  apart  of  half  the  Sundays  in 
the  year  for  some  one  or  other  special  purpose, 


2IO      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

usually  the  raising  of  money  for  a  specific  and  fre- 
quently worthy  object;  the  "drives"  for  millions,  the 
huge  and  impressive  organizations,  "scientifically" 
conducted,  for  rounding  up  lapsed  communicants,  or 
doubtful  converts,  or  cash  and  pledges  for  missions, 
or  pensions,  or  the  raising  of  clergy  stipends;  the 
"Nation-wide  Campaign,"  the  "Inter-Church  World 
Movement";  these — not  to  speak  of  the  growing 
policy  of  "making  it  easy"  for  the  hesitant  to  "come 
into  the  church"  by  minimizing  unpopular  clauses  in 
the  Creeds  or  loosening-up  on  discipline,  and  of  at- 
tracting "advanced"  elements  by  the  advocacy  and 
exploiting  of  each  new  social  or  industrial  or  politi- 
cal fad  as  it  arises — are  strong  deterrents  to  those 
who  honestly  and  ardently  hunger  for  religion  that 
is  religion  and  neither  social  service  nor  "big  busi- 
ness." 

Christ  said  "you  cannot  serve  both  God  and  mam- 
mon," and  this  is  one  of  the  few  cases  where  He 
stated  a  moral  condition  as  a  fact  instead  of  indicat- 
ing the  right  or  the  wrong  possibility  in  action.  Or- 
ganized Christianity  has  for  some  time  been  trying 
to  render  this  dual  service,  and  the  penalty  thereof 
is  now  on  the  world.  This  consideration  seems  to 
me  so  important  and  so  near  the  root  of  our  troubles, 
and  not  in  the  field  of  organized  religion  alone,  that 
I  am  going  to  quote  at  length  from  the  Rev.  Fr. 
Duffy  of  the  American  "Society  of  the  Divine  Com- 
passion." What  he  has  said  came  to  me  while  I  was 
preparing  this  lecture,  and  it  is  so  much  better  than 
anything  I  could  say  that  for  my  present  purpose 
I  make  it  my  own. 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  211 

"To  the  thoughtful  person,  and  the  need  of  re- 
formation will  appeal  only  to  the  thoughtful  per- 
son, it  must  on  reflection  become  abundantly  evi- 
dent that  the  chief  necessity  of  our  times  in  the  re- 
ligious world  is  the  recovery  of  Faith.  Probably 
lack  of  the  true  measure  of  Faith  has  been  the  story 
of  every  generation,  with  few  exceptions,  in  the  long 
history  of  Christianity,  but  there  possibly  never  has 
been  a  time  when  men  talked  more  of  it  and  pos- 
sessed less  than  in  our  own  day.  *  *  *  *" 

"Christianity  is  a  new  thing  of  splendid  vision 
for  each  and  every  generation  of  men,  unique  in  its 
promise  and  unapproached  in  its  attraction.  And 
yet  how  small  a  factor  we  have  made  it  in  the  world's 
moulding  compared  with  what  it  might  be.  We 
have  not  achieved  a  tiny  part  of  what  we  might  have 
achieved,  because  we  lack  the  essentials  of  achieve- 
ment; Faith  and  Faith's  vision.  Obsessed,  after 
centuries  of  discussion  and  persecution,  with  the 
notion  that  faith  is  made  up  of  mere  belief,  we 
have  lost  the  secret  of  that  victorious  power  that 
overcomes  the  world,  and  are  weakly  dependent 
upon  the  world's  means  for  what  spiritual  operation 
we  undertake.  And  so  content  have  we  grown  with 
things  as  they  are,  that  what  they  might  be  comes 
only  as  a  dream  that  passes  away  quickly  with  the 
night;  blind  to  our  appalling  money-dependency  in 
modern  religion,  satisfied  that  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven  is  as  nigh  to  us  as  is  possible  under  pres- 
ent conditions  of  society,  we  practically  have  sub- 
stituted for  the  theological  virtues,  Faith,  Hope  and 
Charity,  the  ascending  degrees  of  belief,  resignation, 


212   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT  PEACE 

money.  This  is  partly  due  to  our  religious  inheri- 
tance and  partly  to  mental  and  spiritual  sloth  which 
dislikes  the  effort  of  thinking,  preferring  easy  ac- 
quiescence in  conditions  that  are  the  resultants  of 
blinded  vision.  For  dependency  upon  money  is  not 
something  merely  of  the  present,  but  a  condition  in 
the  spiritual  sphere  that  is  largely  a  product  of  a 
long  past.  The  really  inexcusable  thing  is  our  will- 
ingness, in  a  day  of  greater  light  and  knowledge,  to 
close  our  eyes  to  the  true  nature  of  the  unattractive, 
anaemic  thing  we  call  faith,  which  would  be  seen  as 
powerless  to  achieve  at  all,  if  taken  out  of  the  soil 
of  material  means  in  which  it  has  been  planted." 

He  then  gives  various  instances  of  methods  actu- 
ally put  in  practice  amongst  the  churches  and  denom- 
inations which  indicate  the  renunciation  of  faith 
and  an  exclusive  reliance  on  worldy  agencies  and 
he  then  continues : 

"The  Joint  Commission  on  Clergy  Pensions,  ap- 
pointed by  the  General  Convention  of  1913,  made 
as  the  basis  for  apportionment,  not  the  services  of 
self-denial  of,  but  the  amount  of  stipend  received 
by,  the  clergy  eligible  for  pension,  thus  penalizing  the 
priest  who,  for  the  love  of  God,  sacrificed  a  larger 
income  to  accept  work  in  the  most  needed  places 
where  toil  is  abundant  and  money  scarce.  It  must 
be  evident,  of  course,  that  the  motive  of  the  Com- 
mission is  not  an  endorsement  of  the  blasphemous 
gospel  of  Success,  by  adding  penalty  to  the  self- 
denying  clergy;  what  is  painfully  obvious  is  their  ap- 
parent unbounded  confidence  that  there  are  no  clergy 
sufficiently  foolish  to  sacrifice  stipend  at  the  call  of 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  213 

faith's  venture!  And  since  the  Armistice,  the  only 
real  activity  in  organized  religion  has  been  a  series 
of  "drives"  for  vast  sums  of  money,  in  most  cases 
professionally  directed. 

"A  consideration  of  a  few  facts  such  as  the  for- 
going must  readily  convince  even  the  most  unimag- 
inative person  that  whatever  power  faith  might  have 
had  in  the  past,  it  counts  for  little  today;  that  its  se- 
crets, its  very  meaning  have  been  forgotten.  Other- 
wise there  could  not  be  this  extraordinary  exaggera- 
tion of  the  place  of  money  in  spiritual  operation,  and 
the  unblushing,  tacit  admission  that  mammon,  which 
Christ  so  warned  against,  had  been  recognized  as  the 
master  of  spiritual  situation,  instead  of  the  willing 
servant  and  useful  adjunct  of  faith  it  was  designed 
to  be  in  the  Christian  vision.  Indeed  they  all  speak 
of  that,  largely  unconscious,  atmosphere  of  distrust 
of  God  which  is  so  all-prevailing  among  Christian 
people  today.  If  the  great,  positive  vice  of  the  age 
is  covetousness,  the  great  negative  one  is  distrust 
of  God;  the  two  invariably  go  together  as  parts  of 
a  whole — one  is  the  reverse  side  of  the  other — for, 
it  is  not  that  we  must  not,  or  ought  not,  but  that  we 
"cannot  serve  God  and  mammon."  And  this  atmos- 
phere is  one  in  which  faith  cannot  exist,  it  is  stifled, 
crushed,  killed,  except  it  breathe  the  pure,  sweet  air 
of  God,  with  which  it  can  alone  surround  itself  when 
human  hearts  will. 

"It  is  not  surprising  that  out  of  such  conditions 
should  grow  false  values,  and  that  spirituality  should 
be  measured  by  the  world's  standard.  Thus  we  have 
fallen  into  the  vicious  habit  of  adjudging  qualifica- 


214      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

tions  for  spiritual  leadership  among  the  clergy  by 
the  amount  of  their  stipends,  and  measuring  their 
potentialities  for  usefulness  in  the  Kingdom  of  God 
by  the  amount  of  their  yearly  incomes;  among  the 
laity,  the  men  of  power  are  ever  the  men  of  material 
means,  whom  we  permit  to  play  the  part  of  Prov- 
idence in  feeding  and  sustaining  the  Church  from 
large  purses,  the  filling  of  which  will  not  always 
bear  close  investigation,  and  the  really  successful 
parish  is  always  the  one  that,  no  matter  what  its 
spiritual  condition,  rejoices  in  abundant  material 
means.  So  evident  is  it  that  the  means  of  spiritual 
life  have  been  so  confused  with  the  purely  material, 
that  it  occasions  no  surprise  when  a  neighbourhood 
having  changed  from  the  residence  district  of  the 
comparatively  well-to-do  to  the  very  poor,  the  vestry 
feels  bound  to  consider  the  moving  of  the  church 
to  a  more  'desirable'  quarter. 

"These,  of  course,  are  hard  facts  to  face,  and  it 
is  not  strange  that  we  should  seek  to  evade  them 
by  a  false  optimism  that  thinks  evil  is  eliminated 
by  merely  contemplating  good.  The  point  is,  they 
must  be  faced,  and  at  a  time  when  there  is  some 
evidence  of  a  little  awakening,  it  must  more  and 
more  force  itself  into  the  consciousness  of  the 
thoughtful  that  the  dead  spiritual  conditions  of 
today  are  due  to  the  shifting  of  faith  from  God  to 
material  things  as  the  means  of  achieving.  The 
only  hope  lies  in  the  apparent  unconsciousness  of 
the  error.  This  is  invariably  the  atmosphere  that 
prevails  when  ecclesiastical  history  repeats  itself  in 
corruption;  it  had  been  true  of  more  than  two  or 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  215 

three  generations,  though  obviously  unseen  save  by 
a  few  of  those  contemporary  with  the  times,  that  in 
Jerusalem,  'the  heads  thereof  judge  for  reward,  and 
the  priests  teach  for  hire,  and  the  prophets  thereof 
divine  for  money ;  yet  will  they  lean  upon  the  Lord, 
and  say:  Is  not  the  Lord  among  us?  None  evil 
can  come  upon  us.'  Corporate  unconsciousness,  in 
greater  or  less  measure,  of  these  conditions,  may 
influence  the  degree  of  guilt,  but  never  can  acquit 
of  the  sin.  And  the  cold,  naked  truth  is  that  today 
we  stand  almost  helpless  before  a  world  of  peculiar 
problems. 

"What  is  there  here  to  reflect  the  -power  and 
might  of  Christianity,  such  as  the  early  Church,  es- 
pecially, possessed,  and  subsequent  generations,  in 
times  of  great  faith,  really  knew  so  much  of — the 
power  to  heal  the  sick,  to  cast  out  devils,  to  achieve 
wonders  out  of  Christ's  poverty,  to  experience  the 
thrilling  joy  of  religion  in  the  ever-abiding  Divine 
Presence,  and  witness  the  marvels  of  faith  in  the 
conquering  of  the  world?  How  is  it  we  are  no 
longer  able  to  communicate  the  secrets  to  the  suffer- 
ing world  which  are  able  to  transmute  the  people's 
want  into  God's  plenty,  and  attract  and  hold  the 
hearts  of  men  with  the  joys  of  the  Vision  Splendid? 
Why  is  it  that  hope  has  given  way  to  resignation, 
that  the  preaching  of  forgiveness  has  been  dwarfed 
by  the  insistence  upon  penalty,  that  distinct  evils 
in  the  physical  sphere  are  attributed  to  God  and, 
because  of  that,  held  up  to  religious  estimation  as 
good;  the  day  of  miracles  is  regarded  as  belonging 
to  a  far  distant  past,  the  answering  of  prayer  looked 


2l6      TOWARDS      THE      GREAT      PEACE 

upon  as  the  exception  instead  of  the  rule,  and  the 
old  melody  of  joy  in  religion  exchanged  for  the 
wail  of  despair  in  an  interpretation  of  'Thy  will 
be  done'  that  is  only  associated  with  human  ca- 
lamity? The  reply  is  as  simple  as,  to  the  thoughtful 
person,  it  is  obvious:  we  have  lost  knowledge  of  a 
living,  vital,  conquering  faith  that  is  rooted  in  God 
Himself,  and  have  satisfied  the  hunger  of  human 
sense  by  placing  trust  in  the  things  of  the  earth 
which  we  see  and  touch,  and  in  so  doing  lost  the 
power  spiritually  to  achieve. 

"Now  we  can  only  approach,  in  the  hope  of  a  day 
of  better  things,  the  great  practical  and  intellectual 
problems  of  our  times  from  the  standpoint  of  faith's 
recovery,  for  it  is  only  in  their  relationship  to  faith 
they  can  be  viewed  intelligently  by  the  Christian. 
And  it  will  be  found  that  at  the  root  of  all  our  dif- 
ficulties and  all  our  negligences — so  many  of  them 
unconscious — and  as  the  cause  of  our  vain  expedi- 
encies and  attempts  to  justify  the  corporate  spiritual 
situation,  is  the  absence  of  vital  faith  and  a  whole 
obedience  to  which  God  alone  has  conditioned  re- 
sults. We  need  sorely  to  reconsider  what  faith 
really  is,  and  when  we  have  recovered  in  some  meas- 
ure that  knowledge  of  it  in  experience,  which  de- 
clared its  unspeakable  worth  in  the  early  Church 
and  in  later  periods  of  ecclesiastical  history  which 
stand  out  before  all  others,  we  shall  look  back  upon 
our  past  distrust  of  God  and  His  promises  with 
shame  and  wonderment,  and  proceed  to  revise  our 
cataloguing  of  spiritual  values  and  degrees  of  sin. 
For  the  really  destructive  thing,  before  all  others, 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  217 

is  a  weakened  faith  that  compromises  in  a  half 
obedience  to  Christ  and  a  search  for  earthly  props. 
The  work  of  Satan  has  even  been  the  prompting 
of  distrust  of  God  in  the  human  family,  just  as  the 
work  of  redemption  means  so  largely  the  re-estab- 
lishing of  it  in  the  Person  of  Jesus  Christ.  From 
the  first  temptation  of  man  to  the  present  moment, 
all  the  forces  of  evil  have  concentrated  upon  break- 
ing man's  trust  in  God  and  His  promises;  every  sin 
has  had  that  as  its  ultimate  end,  and  every  disaster, 
ill  and  trial,  in  the  world  and  individual  life,  is 
subtly  presented  by  the  enemy  of  God  and  man 
(knowing  our  haziness  of  vision),  so  as  to  place 
the  appearances  against  the  Creator  in  a  blind  dis- 
regard for  the  created;  just  as  in  the  life  of  the  In- 
carnate Son  all  the  great  power  of  the  forces  of  dark- 
ness were  brought  to  bear  unsuccessfully  upon  the 
snapping  of  His  faith  in  His  Father — from  the 
time  He  was  tempted  to  believe  Himself  forgotten, 
when  hungering  and  physically  reduced  in  the  wild- 
erness after  His  long  fast,  until  the  dreadful  cry  of 
dereliction  from  the  Cross  at  the  very  end. 

"The  call  for  reformation  today,  then,  is  to  the 
doing  of  things  left  undone,  the  search  for  and  re- 
covery of  almost  lost  spiritual  powers  that  alone 
lastingly  can  achieve  for  God  and  hasten  man's 
salvation.  And  this  requires  the  venture  and  daring 
that  breaks  from  the  world,  withdraws  from  com- 
promise, and  that,  rightly  estimating  the  character 
and  attiude  of  God,  refuses  longer  to  believe  Him 
the  author  of  evils  we  resignedly  accept  today  by  call- 
ing them  good;  and  instead,  claims  the  powers  of 


2l8       TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

the  Divine  promises  for  the  utter  destruction  of  the 
world's  ills  by  a  strict  dependence  upon  spiritual 
forces  and  weapons  for  the  accomplishment  of  re- 
sults. Above  all,  this  means  a  change  and  reform 
in  corporate  conduct  as  the  end  of  repentance,  for 
the  present  almost  total  disregard  of  the  laws  and 
principles  of  Christian  living  as  given  in  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount." 

These  are  hard  sayings  and  strong  doctrine,  but 
will  any  one  say  they  are  not  true  ?  The  weakening 
of  religion,  with  the  consequent  decline  of  civiliz- 
ation, is  ultimately  to  be  traced  back  to  organized 
religion,  not  to  religion  itself,  and  still  less  to  any 
inherent  defects  in  Christianity.  Where  organized 
religion  has  failed  it  deserved  to  fail,  because  it 
countenanced  disunion,  forsook  the  saving  sacra- 
ments, and  finally  compromised  with  worldliness 
and  materialism.  With  each  one  of  these  false  ven- 
tures faith  began  to  weaken  amongst  the  mass  of 
people  until  at  last  this,  which  can  always  save,  and 
alone  can  save,  ceased  to  have  either  the  power  or 
the  will  to  force  the  organism  to  conform  to  the 
spirit.  If  we  have  indeed  accomplished  the  depth 
of  our  fall,  then  the  time  is  at  hand  when  we  may 
hope  and  pray  for  a  new  outpouring  of  divine 
grace  that  will  bring  recovery. 

There  are  wide  evidences  that  men  earnestly  de- 
sire this.  I  have  already  spoken  of  the  great  cor- 
porate movements  towards  unity,  and  these  mean 
much  even  though  they  may  at  present  take  on 
something  of  the  quality  of  mechanism  instead  of  de- 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  219 

pending  on  the  individual  and  the  grace  of  God 
working  in  him.  The  "World  Conference  on  Faith 
and  Order,"  the  just  effected  federation  of  the 
Presbyterians,  Methodists  and  Congregationalists 
in  Canada,  above  all  the  eirenic  manifesto  of  the 
Bishops  at  the  last  Lambeth  Conference,  all  indicate 
a  new  spirit  working  potently  in  the  souls  of  men. 
Concrete  results  are  not  as  yet  conspicuous,  but  the 
spirit  is  there  and  a  beginning  has  been  made.  Even 
more  significant  is  the  wide  testimony  to  the  need 
for  definite,  concrete  and  pervasive  religion  that  is 
daily  given  by  men  whose  names  have  hitherto  been 
quite  dissociated  from  matters  of  this  kind;  scien- 
tists, educators,  men  of  business  and  men  of  public 
life.  It  may  be  testimony  in  favour  of  some  new  in- 
vention, some  synthetic  product  of  curious  and  ab- 
normal ingredients ;  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  frequently 
is,  and  we  confront  such  remarkable  products  as 
Mr.  Wells  has  given  us,  for  example.  The  signifi- 
cant thing,  however,  is  the  fact  of  the  desire  and 
the  avowal;  if  we  have  this  I  think  we  may  leave 
it  to  God  to  see  that  the  desire  is  satisfied  in  the  end 
by  heavenly  food  and  not  by  the  nostrums  of  in- 
genuity. For  the  same  reason  we  may  look  without 
dismay  on  certain  novel  phenomena  of  the  moment. 
In  their  divergence  from  "the  Faith  once  delivered 
to  the  Saints"  and  left  in  the  keeping  of  the  Church 
Christ  founded  as  a  living  and  eternal  organism 
through  which  His  Spirit  would  work  forever,  they 
are  wrong  and  therefore  they  cannot  endure,  but 
each  testifies  to  the  passionate  desire  in  man  for 
religion  as  a  reality,  and  no  one  of  them  comes  into 


220   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT  PEACE 

existence  except  as  the  result  of  desperate  action 
by  men  to  recover  something  that  had  been  taken 
from  them  and  that  their  souls  needed,  and  would 
have  at  any  cost.  Each  one  of  these  strange  man- 
ifestations is  a  reaction  from  some  old  error  that 
had  become  established  belief  or  custom.  No  one 
who  holds  to  historic  Christianity  is  interested  in 
them,  but  those  who  have  found  religion  intellectual- 
ized  beyond  endurance  and  transformed  either  by 
materialism  or  rationalism,  seek  for  the  mysticism 
they  know  to  be  a  reality  (to  employ  a  paradox)  in 
the  ultra  mysticism  of  Oriental  cults;  those  who  re- 
volt against  the  exaggeration  of  evil  and  its  exalt- 
ation to  eminence  that  rivals  that  of  God  Himself, 
which  is  the  legacy  of  one  powerful  movement  in  the 
Reformation,  rush  to  the  other  extreme  and  deny 
the  existence  of  evil  and  even  the  reality  of  matter, 
while  spiritism,  the  most  insidious,  perilous  and 
fatal  of  all  the  spiritual  temptations  that  beset  the 
world  at  this  time,  gains  as  its  adherents  those  who 
have  been  deprived  of  the  Catholic  belief  in  the 
Communion  of  Saints  and  have  been  forbidden  to 
pray  for  the  dead  or  to  ask  for  their  prayers  and 
intercessions. 

However  strange  and  erroneous  the  actual  man- 
ifestation, there  is  no  question  as  to  the  reality  and 
prevalence  of  the  desire  for  the  recovery  of  spiritual 
power  through  the  channels  of  religion.  It  shows 
itself,  as  it  should,  first  of  all  in  the  individual,  and 
it  is  only  recently  that  organized  religion,  Catholic 
or  Protestant,  has  begun  to  show  a  sympathetic  con- 
sciousness and  to  take  the  first  hesitant  steps  to- 


ORGANIC    RELIGION  221 

wards  meeting  the  demand.  Because  of  this  the 
seekers  for  reality  have  been  left  unshepherded  and 
have  wandered  off  into  strange  wildernesses.  The 
call  is  now  to  the  churches,  to  organized  religion, 
and  if  the  call  is  heeded  our  troubles  are  well  on  the 
road  to  an  end.  If  the  old  way  of  jealousy,  hatred 
and  fear  is  maintained,  then  humanly  speaking,  our 
case  is  hopeless.  If  the  older  way  of  brotherhood, 
charity  and  loving-kindness  is  followed  the  future 
is  secure  in  the  Great  Peace.  Nothing  is  wrong 
that  leads  men  to  Christ,  and  this  is  true  from  the 
Salvation  Army  at  one  end  of  the  scale  to  the  Seven 
Sacraments  of  Catholicity  at  the  other.  The  world 
demands  now  not  denial  but  affirmation,  not  protest 
and  division  but  the  ringing  "Credo"'  of  Catholic 
unity. 


VIII 
PERSONAL  RESPONSIBILITY 

Not   by   might,  nor  by   power,   but   by   My   Spirit,   saith   the 
Lord  of  Hosts. 

TltTE  HAVE  tried  to  approach  each  subject  in  this 
course  of  lectures  in  the  spirit  of  peace,  and 
the  greatest  contributory  factor  in  the  achieving  of 
the  Great  Peace  is  the  individual  himself,  on  whom, 
humanly  speaking,  rests  the  final  responsibility. 
"Not  by  might,  nor  by  power,  but  by  My  Spirit, 
saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts."  Not  by  majestical  engines 
and  curious  devices  and  mass-action,  nor  yet  by  an 
imposed  human  authority  enforced  by  arms  and  the 
law,  but  by  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  working  through 
the  individual  soul  and  compelling  the  individual  will. 
Peace  is  one  of  the  promised  fruits  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  like  the  others  is  manifested  through 
human  lives;  therefore  on  us  rests  the  preeminent 
responsibility  of  showing  forth  in  ourselves,  first  of 
all,  those  things  we  desire  for  others  and  for  society. 
We  have  experienced  the  Great  War,  we  endure 
its  aftermath,  and  amidst  the  perils  and  dangers  that 
follow  both  there  is  none  greater  than  that  which 
attaches  to  exterior  war,  viz.,  that  the  attention  of 
both  combatants  is  focussed  on  the  faults  and  the 
weaknesses  and  the  crimes  of  the  opponent,  with 
the  result  that  both  become  destructive  critics  rather 
than  constructive  examples.  Chesterton  rightly  says, 

222 


PERSONAL    RESPONSIBILITY       22J 

"What  is  wrong  with  the  critic  is  that  he  does  not 
criticise  himself  *  *  *  rather  he  identifies  himself 
with  the  ideal."  Seeing  evil  in  others  and  flattering 
one's  self  is  the  antithesis  of  the  spirit  that  would 
lead  to  the  Great  Peace,  for  in  that  spirit  the  field 
of  warfare  is  transferred  from  the  external  to  the 
internal,  and  the  interior  contest,  which  alone  estab- 
lishes lasting  results,  necessitates  a  recognition  of 
our  own  error  and  the  need  of  amendment  of  our 
own  life. 

If  our  modern  devices  have  failed;  if  the  things 
we  invented  with  a  high  heart  and  high  hope,  in 
government,  industry,  society,  education,  philosophy 
have  in  the  end  brought  disappointment,  disillusion- 
ment, even  despair,  it  is  less  because  of  their  inherent 
defects  than  because  the  individual  failed,  and  him- 
self ceased  .to  act  as  the  sufficient  channel  for  the 
divine  power  which  alone  energizes  our  weak  little 
engines  and  which  acts  through  the  individual  alone. 
There  is  no  better  demonstration  of  this  essential 
part  played  by  the  personal  life  of  man  than  the 
fact  that  God,  for  the  redemption  of  the  world, 
took  on  human  form  and  became  one  Man  amongst 
many  men.  There  is  no  better  demonstration  of 
the  fact  that  it  is  through  the  personal  lives  of  indi- 
viduals that  the  Great  Peace  is  to  be  achieved,  both 
directly  and  indirectly,  than  the  fact  that  peace,  the 
gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  was  promised  to  the  indi- 
vidual man,  by  Christ  Himself,  as  the  legacy  he  left 
to  his  disciples  after  His  Resurrection  and  Ascen- 
sion. Since  then  the  world  has  been  under  the  dis- 
pensation of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  "Guide  and  Com- 


224      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

forter"  that  was  promised,  even  though  it  has 
blindly  and  from  time  to  time  rejected  the  guidance 
and  therefore  known  not  the  comfort.  The  Old  Law 
of  "Thou  shalt  not"  was  followed  by  the  New  Law 
of  "Thou  shalt,"  and  this  in  turn  by  the  law  of  the 
third  Person  of  the  Trinity  which  does  not  super- 
sede the  dispensations  of  the  Father  and  of  the 
Son,  but  fulfills  them  in  that  it  affords  the  spiritual 
power,  if  we  will,  to  abide  by  the  inhibitions  and  to 
carry  out  the  commands. 

Our  search  is  for  peace,  the  Great  Peace,  "the 
Peace  of  God  which  passeth  all  understanding,"  and 
we  shall  achieve  this  for  ourselves  and  for  the  world 
only  through  ourselves  as  individuals,  and  so  for  the 
society  of  which  we  are  a  part,  and  in  so  far  as  we 
bring  ourselves  into  contact  with  the  Spirit  of  God. 
There  is  deep  significance  in  the  fact  that  the  first 
time  Christ  used  the  salutation  "Peace  be  unto  you," 
was  after  His  resurrection.  It  would  seem  that  this 
special  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit  had  to  be  withheld 
from  man  until  after  the  human  life  of  God  the  Son 
had  been  brought  to  an  end  in  accomplishment,  for 
He  says  "Peace  I  leave  with  you,  My  peace  I  give 
unto  you:  not  as  the  world  giveth  give  I  unto  you. 
Let  not  your  heart  be  troubled,  neither  let  it  be 
afraid."  "It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go  away; 
for  if  I  go  not  away,  the  Comforter  will  not  come 
unto  you :  but  if  I  depart  I  will  send  Him  unto  you. 
When  He,  the  Spirit  of  Truth,  is  come,  He  will 
guide  you  into  all  truth."  "Ye  shall  receive  power 
after  that  the  Holy  Ghost  is  come  upon  you." 

It  is  the  spirit  that  quickeneth.    After  God  had 


PE  RS  O  N  A  L    R  E  S  P  O  NS  I  B  I  L  IT  Y       225 

revealed  the  Law  and  given  to  us  the  great  redeem- 
ing and  atoning  Life,  He  saw  that  we  had  need  of  a 
further  manifestation  before  we  should  be  able  to 
keep  the  law  and  live  the  life.  Therefore  the  Holy 
Spirit  was  sent  to  quicken  us  and  give  us  power  to  do 
what  we  had  both  heard  and  seen.  Today  we  accept 
the  moral  law,  we  recognize  the  perfection  of 
Chirst's  life,  but  we  need  to  be  reminded  again  that 
the  power  to  be  "sons  of  God"  is  present  with  us  if 
we  will  but  use  it.  As  this  power  is  a  spirit  it  can 
only  be  apprehended  spiritually;  when  our  minds 
and  hearts  are  set  on  material  things,  even  on  good 
material  things,  the  "still  small  voice"  of  the  spirit 
remains  unheard:  but  if  we  listen  first  to  that  inward 
voice  and  then  use  the  means  of  grace  afforded  us, 
we  are  enabled  to  lift  up  our  hearts  and  minds  to 
the  Creator  and  then  to  use  in  His  service  all  the 
material  universe  which  is  also  His  creation.  We 
can  not  get  a  right  philosophy  by  working  for  right 
philosophy,  but  only  by  living  in  the  right  relation- 
ship as  individuals:  then  as  a  by-product  of  religion 
a  right  philosophy  will  come.  We  can  not  get  a 
right  industrial  system  by  searching  for  a  right  in- 
dustrial system,  but  if  we  show  forth  in  our  lives  the 
Christian  virtues,  a  right  industrial  system  will  come 
as  one  of  the  by-products  of  religion.  So  with  each 
one  of  our  so-called  "problems."  Life  rightly  lived 
has  no  problems.  This  is  a  hard  saying  for  an  in- 
tellectual age  whose  temptation  is  to  trust  in  its  own 
power  rather  than  in  the  power  of  God,  but  "except 
ye  become  as  little  children"  and  walk  by  faith  and 
not  by  sight  the  Kingdom  of  God  is  withheld.  A 


226      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

soldier  who  suffered  in  the  late  war,  and  out  of  his 
suffering  found  peace,  says,  "Christ's  hardest  work 
is  to  teach  the  wise :  Those  who  are  entrusted  with 
authority  and  responsibility  will  be  the  least  prepared 
to  make  the  venture  of  the  Spirit,  however  much  they 
may  believe  in  it.  They  are  sacrificing  least  now: 
they  will  have  to  sacrifice  most  when  the  Spirit  comes. 
They  have  so  much  to  unlearn:  children  and  work- 
ing men  have  so  little.  The  whole  of  our  world  to- 
day is  rooted  and  grounded  in  intellect.  Our  ma- 
chinery, our  institutions,  our  great  systems,  the 
entire  body  of  enterprise  is  governed  by  brains.  It 
is  this  that  will  alter.  Just  behind  intellect  there  is 
a  vision  that  is  purer,  keener,  more  powerful  than 
the  vision  of  your  eyes,  than  the  hearing  of  your 
ears,  than  the  touch  of  your  hands.  This  world  is 
being  transformed  into  another  which  comes  into 
being  at  our  spiritual  touch.  The  world  needs  some- 
thing personal,  something  from  the  heart.  It  is  sick 
to  death  with  the  cold  machinery  of  the  intellect. 
But  before  men  see  this  they  must  change  their  view 
of  life,  they  must  be  born  again.  The  scientists,  the 
historians  and  theologians,  the  philosophers,  have 
made  the  universe  too  big.  It  is  not  a  big  place :  it 
is  very  tiny.  Life  is  so  simple,  really.  Our  wise 
men  have  made  it  so  difficult,  so  ugly.  It  is  only 
children  who  can  see  the  risen  Christ;  children,  per- 
haps, out  of  whom  seven  devils  have  been  cast.  The 
world  needs  not  critics,  but  teachers,  and  children  are 
waiting  everywhere  to  teach,  but  men,  shutting  the 
windows  of  their  souls,  try  rather  to  mould  these  lit- 
tle ones  to  fit  into  the  vacant  spaces  of  their  own 


PERSONAL   RESPONSIBILITY      227 

stupid  world.  Are  not  children  the  true  artists? 
They  won't  tolerate  anything  but  Beauty.  They 
see  Beauty  everywhere,  not  because  it  is  there,  but 
because  they  want  it  there.  Everything  they  touch 
turns  into  something  far  more  precious  than  gold: 
every  word  they  utter  is  a  song  of  praise.  You  are 
almost  in  heaven  every  time  you  look  into  the  eyes 
of  a  child."  Remember,  please,  these  are  the  words 
of  a  man  who  has  faced  the  horrible  realities  of 
modern  warfare,  and  so  do  not  dismiss  them  as  mere 
poetry,  or  with  Nicodemus'  question,  "How  can  a 
man  be  born  again?",  but  listen  to  a  modern  inter- 
pretation of  the  answer  to  that  question: — ("The 
Life  Indeed.")  "We  must  be  born  again  even  to  see 
the  spiritual  kingdom,  must  be  born  of  water  and 
the  spirit  to  enter  its  gates  at  all.  So  to  his  little 
audience  of  disciples  Our  Lord  says  it  is  not  an  affair 
of  legislation,  of  discovery,  of  which  men  say,  'Lo 
here,  lo  there !  but  the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  within 
you.  Why  a  second  birth?  This  is  a  second  birth 
because  it  must  needs  supervene  at  a  point  where  two 
elements  can  work  together,  the  element  of  an  ap- 
pealing, vitalizing  spirit  from  the  unseen  and  the  ele- 
ment of  free  human  choice.  Being  of  the  spirit,  it  is 
the  birth  into  freedom:  it  is  the  soul  emerging  from 
its  prison  into  the  open  air  of  liberty  and  light  and 
life."  Note  the  element  of  free  choice.  Our  first 
birth  is  outside  our  choice  and  the  gifts  are  uncon- 
ditioned; our  second  birth,  when  again  we  become  as 
little  children,  demands  our  response  to  the  Holy 
Spirit  and  our  persevering  cooperation  with  Him  to 
make  His  influence  effectual  for  ourselves  and  for 


228      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

the  "communion  of  saints"  and  the  corporate  re- 
ligion into  which  the  Spirit  also  baptizes  us.  In  a 
recent  sermon  a  bishop  of  the  Episcopal  Church  says, 
''This  is  the  creed  of  the  Church — the  Divine  Father 
and  Forgiveness:  the  Divine  Son  and  Redemption: 
the  Divine  Spirit  and  Abundant  Life.  Therefore  the 
Church  still  insists  upon  the  creation  of  moral  rec- 
titude and  spiritual  character  as  the  end  and  pur- 
pose of  religion,  aye,  as  the  basic  problem  underly- 
ing all  questions  relating  to  human  life — social,  in- 
dustrial, civic,  and  political.  The  Church  still 
preaches  the  gospel  of  the  Grace  of  God,  the  obliga- 
tion and  blessing  of  worship,  the  meaning  and  virtue 
of  the  Christian  Sacraments."  Also  "My  brethren, 
we  shall  not  be  content  to  criticize  and  find  fault 
with  our  own  age  and  time,  but  rather  we  shall  pray 
for  the  power  to  see  within  its  questionings,  unrest 
and  discontent — aye,  its  recklessness  and  apparent 
failures — the  strivings  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  But 
each  man  has  to  voice  for  himself  the  conviction  of 
the  reality  of  the  spiritual  order  and  the  spiritual 
life.  Therefore,  let  us  believe  in  and  practice  the 
worship  of  God,  'praying  always'  as  St.  Paul  says, 
'with  all  prayer  and  supplication  in  the  Spirit,'  or  as 
St.  Jude  says,  'building  up  yourselves  on  your  most 
holy  faith,  praying  in  the  Holy  Spirit.'  ' 

Let  us  accept  this  suggestion  and  try  to  find  in  the 
unrest  of  our  own  time  evidences  of  "the  strivings  of 
the  Spirit  of  God,"  waiting  our  perception  and  re- 
sponse. The  soldier  of  the  Great  War,  having 
faced  death  and  imprisonment  and  suffering  in  many 
forms  says,  "compared  with  the  depth  of  good  in 


P  E  R  S  O  N  A  L    R  E  S  P  O  NS  I  B  I  LIT  Y       229 

the  world  the  evil  is  shallow."  The  first  evidence  of 
good  in  our  own  day  is  the  almost  universal  discon- 
tent with  evils  and  the  desire  to  find  a  better  way. 
The  humility  which  recognizes  that  so  widespread  a 
condition  cannot  be  the  fault  of  any  one  nation  or 
group  but  is  rather  the  responsibility  of  each  one  of 
us,  is  cause  for  hope.  Some  of  us  believe  that  war 
can  breed  only  war,  hatred  only  hatred;  that  govern- 
ments cannot  make  peace,  but  can  only  cause  cessa- 
tion of  open  hostilities,  and  that  the  real  peace,  the 
Great  Peace,  must  await  the  action  of  the  Spirit. 
This  Spirit,  of  love  and  forgiveness,  breeds  love  and 
forgiveness,  indeed  is  far  more  potent  than  the  spirit 
of  hate.  Because  of  this  very  strength  and  potency 
its  evidences  are  not  so  immediately  apparent,  but 
they  are  deeper-rooted.  Perhaps  in  this  material 
sphere  we  human  beings  must  see,  and  to  a  certain 
extent  experience,  hate,  before  we  can  really  know 
love,  and  consciously  and  freely  choose  it.  When 
that  choice  is  made,  when  we,  knowing  all  that  hate 
and  evil  and  malice  can  accomplish,  yet  deliberately 
choose  to  love  our  enemies,  we  have  slain  the  Ad- 
versary and  made  hate  and  evil  powerless.  Of 
course  we  have  not  power  of  ourselves  to  do  this  but 
only  through  the  grace  of  God.  When  we  try  God's 
way,  not  waiting  for  the  other  person  to  reform  or 
to  be  generous  or  to  speak  gently  or  to  forgive,  then 
and  only  then  do  we  deserve  the  name  of  Christians; 
then  and  only  then  are  we  walking  in  love ;  then  and 
only  then  are  we  really  praying  effectually  "Thy 
Kingdom  come,  Thy  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in 
Heaven."  We  have  tried  the  way  of  the  world,  the 


230      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

way  of  reprisals,  the  way  of  distrust,  and,  thank 
God,  we  are  none  of  us  satisfied  with  the  results. 
Perhaps  now  we  may  be  ready  to  try  the  way  of  God 
by  making  the  great  adventure  of  faith,  each  one  in 
his  own  person;  faith  in  himself  and  faith  in  the 
future.  The  way  of  the  world  has  bred  fear  that 
has  issue  in  hate,  and  hate  that  has  issue  in  fear;  but 
the  better  way,  that  of  faith,  breeds  trust  that  has 
issue  in  fellowship,  and  fellowship  that  has  issue  in 
trust.  There  is  no  problem  of  labour,  of  politics,  of 
society  that  is  insoluble  if  once  it  is  approached  in 
the  spirit  of  faith  and  fellowship  and  trust,  but  none 
of  these  is  susceptible  of  solution  where  the  control- 
ing  motives  are  hate,  distrust  and  fear.  The  modern 
policy  of  centralization  and  segregation  has  resulted 
in  dealing  with  men  as  groups  and  not  as  individuals. 
When,  for  example,  iron-bound  cults  (they  are  no 
less  than  this)  meet  as  "capital"  and  as  "labour," 
both  merge  the  individuality  of  their  members  in  a 
thing  which  has  no  real  or  necessary  existence  but 
is  an  artificial  creation  of  thought  operating  under 
the  dominion  of  ephemeral,  almost  accidental  condi- 
tions. As  a  member  of  an  "interest"  or  a  cult,  where 
humanity  and  personality  are,  so  to  speak,  "in  com- 
mission," a  man  does  not  hesitate  to  do  those  things 
he  would  never  think  of  doing  for  himself,  knowing 
them  to  be  selfish,  cruel,  unjust  and  uncharitable. 
A  case  in  point — if  we  need  one,  which  is  hardly 
probable  since  they  are  of  daily  occurrence — is  the 
pending  contest  between  the  mine  operators  and  mine 
workers  in  Great  Britain,  where  both  parties,  with 
Government  thrown  in,  are  guilty  of  maintaining 


PERSONAL    RESPONSIBILITY       23 1 

theories  and  perpetrating  acts  for  which  an  individual 
would  be,  even  now,  excoriated  and  outlawed.  The 
Irish  imbroglio  is  another  instance  of  the  same  kind. 
In  a  personal  letter  from  a  consulting  engineer 
who  has  had  unusual  opportunities,  by  reason  of  his 
official  position,  to  come  closely  in  contact  with  the 
conditions  governing  industry  and  finance  both  in 
America  and  Europe  since  the  war,  I  find  this  illumi- 
nating statement  of  a  matured  judgment.  "As  a 
practical  matter,  and  facing  the  issue,  I  would  preach 
the  practice  of  de-centralization  in  government  and 
business  which  will  in  time  develop  the  individual 
and  accomplish  the  desired  end.  *  *  *  Decen- 
tralization should  be  carried  to  such  an  extent  that 
the  units  of  business  would  be  of  such  size  that  the 
head  could  again  have  a  personal  relation  with  each 
individual  associated  with  him.  *  *  *  With  the 
personal  relation  again  established,  unionism  as  at 
present  practiced  would  again  be  unnecessary,  and 
the  unions  would  become  once  more  guilds  for  the 
development  and  advancement  of  the  individual." 
It  is  this  nullifiication  of  the  human  element,  of  the 
person  as  such,  the  introduction  of  the  gross  aggre- 
gate with  its  artificial  corporate  quality,  and  the  at- 
tempt to  establish  a  correspondence  between  these 
unnatural  things,  the  whole  being  intensified  by  the 
emotions  of  fear,  distrust  and  hate,  which  produces 
the  contemporary  insistence  on  "rights"  and  the 
rank  injustice,  cruelty  and  disorder  that  follow  the 
blind  contest.  To  quote  again  from  the  soldier  who 
achieved  illumination  through  the  recent  war,  "My 
friends,  there  is  no  protection  of  rights  in  heaven. 


232       TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

When  we  speak  of  rights  we  are  blinded  by  the  light 
of  this  world  of  rule  and  order  and  intellectual  con- 
ceits. It  is  not  justice  we  need,  it  is  mercy." 

If  we  honestly  endeavour  to  bring  about  something 
more  nearly  approaching  the  Kingdom  of  God  on 
earth,  we  should  do  well  to  achieve  a  little  more  of 
the  quality  of  child-like  trust  which  knows  that 
through  the  petition  to  father  or  mother,  or  to  a 
guardian  angel,  or  directly  to  God,  the  result  will 
surely  follow.  We  long  passionately  to  see  a  good, 
our  good  as  we  see  it,  accepted  here  and  now,  but 
whatever  we  offer,  no  mater  how  righteous  or  how 
salutary,  is  but  a  small  part  of  the  great  good,  a  lim- 
ited and  partial  showing  forth  of  only  one  element, 
while  the  final  and  comprehensive  good  is  the  result 
of  many  contributions,  and  in  the  end  is  not  ours,  but 
God's,  and  by  His  overruling  providence  it  may  look 
very  unlike  what  we  had  predetermined  and  antici- 
pated. Moreover,  the  condition  even  of  our  own 
small  good  becoming  effective,  is  faith,  and  neither 
sight  nor  action.  There  is  a  faith  that  can  move 
mountains,  and  it  is  faith  in  fellowship,  in  the  under- 
lying, indestructible  good  in  man,  above  all  in  the 
desire  and  the  intent  of  God  to  deal  mercifully  with 
us  and  beyond  the  dictates  of  justice  and  the  claims 
of  our  own  deserts.  When  we  know  and  accept  this 
power  of  faith,  placing  it  above  the  efficiency  of  our 
own  feeble  works,  then  indeed  we  may  become  the 
patient,  hopeful,  joyful  and  faithful  Christians  we 
were  intended  to  be,  and  therefore  the  creators  of 
the  spirit  of  peace.  Nothing  permanent  can  be 
achieved  except  in  cooperation  with  God;  any  work 


PERSONAL    RESPONSIBILITY       233 

of  man  alone  (or  of  the  devil)  has  in  it  the  seed  of 
decay  and  must  perish.  This  knowledge  relieves  us 
of  the  gloomy  responsibility  of  destroying  or  trying 
to  destroy  every  evil  thing  we  see  or  think  we  see. 
If  it  is  really  evil  it  is  already  dying  unless  nourished 
by  evil  within  ourselves.  Here  is  a  Buddhist  legend 
which  has  a  lesson  for  each  of  us — "The  watcher  in 
the  shrine  of  Buddha  rushed  in  to  the  Holy  Fathers 
one  morning  with  tidings  of  a  horrible  demon  who 
had  usurped  the  throne  of  our  Lord  Buddha.  The 
Fathers  ran  to  the  throne  room,  each  one  more  in- 
furiated than  the  other,  and  declaimed  against  the 
insolence  of  the  demon,  who  grew  huger  and  more 
hideous  at  every  angry  word  that  hurtled  through  the 
air.  At  last  arrived  the  oldest  and  most  saintly  of 
the  monks  and  threw  himself  on  his  knees  before  the 
demon  and  said,  "We  thank  thee,  O  Master,  for 
teaching  us  how  much  anger  and  wrath  and  jealousy 
was  still  hidden  in  our  hearts."  At  every  word  he 
said,  the  demon  grew  smaller  and  smaller  and  at  last 
vanished.  He  was  an  Anger-Eating  Demon,  and 
anger-rousing  words  and  even  thoughts  of  ill-feeling 
nourished  him." 

The  belief  that  in  comparison  with  the  depth  of 
good  in  the  world  the  evil  is  shallow  may  also  be 
expressed  in  the  statement  that  God  is  Lord  of 
Eternity  while  the  devil  is  prince  only  of  this  world. 
As  this  evil  spirit  has  power,  and  as  a  part  of  this 
power  is  the  ability  to  appear  as  an  angel  of  light, 
so  to  deceive  us,  we  are  bound  by  self-examination, 
constantly  indulged  in,  to  scrutinize  those  things,  so 
common  in  our  own  lives  we  do  not  notice  them, 


234   TOWARDS  THE   GREAT  PEACE 

which  may  be  but  the  illusions  of  this  spirit  of  dark- 
ness showing  as  a  fictitious  spirit  of  light:  Hurry 
and  carelessness  both  in  thought  and  in  action;  snap- 
judgment  at  short  range;  compromise  with  the  spirit 
of  the  time  in  the  interest  of  "good  business,"  "prac- 
tical considerations"  or  "sound  policy";  worship 
of  the  doctrine  of  "get  results,"  acceptance  of  the 
horrible  principle  that  it  is  every  man's  business  to 
"sell"  something  to  another,  from  a  patent  medicine 
or  "gilt  edged"  bonds  to  a  new  philosophy  or  an  old 
religion;  the  estimating  of  values  by  size,  number, 
cost.  It  is  common  parlance  among  Christian  people 
to  speak  of  what  a  man  "is  worth"  meaning  how 
much  money  he  has.  We  speak  of  a  man's  "making 
a  living"  meaning  only  how  much  money  he  makes, 
when  by  making  only  money  he  would  be  killing  his 
living.  Do  we  not  speak  of  the  call  of  a  missionary 
from  an  unshepherded  flock  to  a  large  city  parish  as 
a  call  to  "a  wider  sphere  of  usefulness"  ?  When  you 
or  I  conceive  of  any  piece  of  work  as  "important"  is 
it  not  because  it  involves  either  great  numbers  or 
great  sums  of  money?  Then  we  hear  much  today 
of  the  need  for  leaders.  The  need  could  not  be 
exaggerated,  but  does  not  this  lack  exist,  in  part, 
because  we  have  forgot  that  the  Christian's  first  duty 
is  to  be  a  follower,  and  that  only  from  amongst  real 
followers  can  God  (not  man,  least  of  all  the  man 
himself)  raise  up  a  leader?  These  are  small  mat- 
ters, you  may  say,  but  "straws  show  which  way  the 
wind  blows,"  and  the  spirit,  like  the  wind,  manifests 
itself  first  in  small  matters.  Every  life  is  made  up 
largely  of  small  things,  "the  little,  nameless  unre- 


PERSONAL    RESPONSIBILITY       235 

membered  acts  of  kindness  and  of  love"  which  some 
one  has  called  "the  noblest  portion  of  a  good  man's 
life." 

With  this  brief  glance  at  some  of  the  possible 
manifestations  of  the  spirit  of  evil  which  we  believe 
to  be  temporary  and  therefore  of  secondary  impor- 
tance only,  let  us  consider  some  of  the  requisites  of 
the  Christian  life  as  exemplified  in  the  life  of  Christ, 
especially  those  of  which  we  need  to  be  reminded 
today.  We  have  already  spoken  of  that  child-like- 
ness which  takes  the  faith  simply  and  applies  it  to 
the  common  things  of  daily  life — Christ's  life  of 
ministry,  of  good  works  (which  was,  in  proportion  to 
the  time  given  to  preparation  for  activity  and  preach- 
ing, of  very  short  duration),  full  of  injunctions  to 
those  who  were  with  him  to  "tell  no  man" :  therefore 
the  good  works  which  are  done  "in  His  likeness" 
must  not  be  done  in  public.  If  we  are  "seen  of  men," 
verily  we  have  our  reward.  Christ's  life  ended  in 
apparent  failure,  in  ignominious  death  on  the  cross. 
The  world  worships  today's  success  and  immediate 
publicity,  the  Christian,  to  be  worthy  of  his  Lord, 
must  accept  apparent  failure  and  must  offer  his  best 
work  in  secret:  "And  my  Father  which  seeth  in 
secret,  shall  reward  thee  openly."  A  touching  poem 
of  Francis  Thompson's  pictures  the  marveling  of 
a  soul  on  his  rewards  in  Paradise  which,  in  his 
humility,  he  thinks  undeserved.  The  man  asks  of 
God: 

0  when  did  I  give  Thee  drink  erewhile, 
Or  when  embrace  Thine  unseen  feet? 


236      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

What  gifts  Thee  give  for  my  Lord  Christ's  smile, 
Who  am  a  guest  here  most  unmeet? 

and  is  answered 

When  thou  kissedest  thy  wife  and  children  sweet 
(Their  eyes  are  fair  in  my  sight  as  thine) 

I  felt  the  embraces  on  My  feet. 

(Lovely  their  locks  in  thy  sight  and  Mine.) 

A  necessary  reminder  of  the  fact  that  for  each  of 
us,  charity,  which  is  love,  begins  at  home,  and  that 
we  love  and  serve  God  best  in  His  holy  human  re- 
lationships— if  we  love  not  our  brother  whom  we 
have  seen  how  can  we  love  God  whom  we  have  not 
seen? 

Again,  the  individual  Christian  life  must,  like  its 
Great  Original,  suffer  for  others.  When  we  suffer 
as  a  result  of  our  own  wrongdoing  we  are  but  meet- 
ing our  just  reward;  but  if  patiently  and  humbly  and 
voluntarily  we  bear  pain,  even  unto  death,  for  others, 
we  are  transcending  justice,  the  pagan  law,  and  ex- 
emplifying mercy,  the  Christian  virtue.  No  sensi- 
tive soul  in  this  generation,  conscious  of  the  sacrifice 
of  the  millions  of  young  lives  who  "stormed 
Heaven"  in  their  willingness  to  die  that  others  might 
live,  can  doubt  this.  The  essence  of  love  is  sacrifice; 
voluntary,  nay  eager  sacrifice.  Before  our  Blessed 
Lord  died  He  was  mocked  and  ridiculed,  He  suf- 
fered physical  hardship,  falling  under  the  weight  of 
the  cross,  and  He  was  lifted  up,  crucified,  to  suffer 
the  ignominius  death  of  a  felon.  He  was  made  a 
spectacle  for  the  jests  and  laughter  of  the  multitude. 


PERSONAL    RESPONSIBILITY       237 

In  our  own  time  and  amongst  ourselves,  except  for 
periods  of  war,  there  is  little  necessity  for  physical 
suffering  for  our  faith,  but  the  need  to  endure  ridi- 
cule is  as  great  as  ever,  perhaps  even  greater  be- 
cause of  the  absence  of  physical  suffering.  Since  we 
are  trying  to  apply  these  things  in  small  and  simple 
ways  to  the  individual  life  let  us  each  one  consider 
how  much  .moral  courage  it  takes  to  defend  Chris- 
tian virtues  when  they  are  sneered  at  under  the  guise 
of  "jokes."  Let  us  exercise  charity  by  not  quot- 
ing instances,  but  let  us  be  watchful  of  our  laughter 
and  our  fellowship,  which  are  both  gifts  of  God,  and 
see  that  we  do  not  confuse  pagan  pleasure  with 
Christian  joy,  the  evil  sneer  with  the  tender  recog- 
nition of  the  absurd  in  ourselves  and  in  others.  It  is 
Mr.  Chesterton  again  who  points  out  the  fact  that 
the  pagan  virtues  of  justice  and  the  like  which  he 
calls  the  "sad  virtues"  were  superseded,  when  the 
great  Christian  revelation  came,  by  the  "gay  and 
exuberant  virtues,"  the  virtues  of  grace,  faith,  hope 
and  charity;  and  who  says,  "the  pagan  virtues  are  the 
reasonable  virtues,  and  the  Christian  virtues  of  faith, 
hope  and  charity  are  in  their  essence  as  unreasonable 
as  they  can  be.  Charity  means  pardoning  what  is 
unpardonable  or  it  is  no  virtue  at  all.  Hope  means 
hoping  when  things  are  hopeless  or  it  is  no  virtue  at 
all.  And  faith  means  believing  the  incredible  or  it 
is  no  virtue  at  all."  If  you  say  this  is  a  paradox  I 
reply:  it  must  be  so,  since  it  requires  faith  to  accept 
a  paradox.  The  realm  of  reason  is  the  one  in  which 
we  walk  by  sight,  and  of  this  fact  our  age  in  its 
pride  of  intellect  has  need  to  be  reminded.  If  Christ 


238      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

be  not  the  Son  of  God,  and  His  revelation  of  the 
"faith  once  delivered"  be  not  the  divine  and  final 
guide,  fulfilling,  completing  and  at  the  same  time  re- 
versing every  other  ethic,  religion  and  moral  code, 
then  these  things  be  indeed  foolishness,  for  there  is 
no  explaining  them  on  the  ground  of  logic  or  philos- 
ophy. But  if,  by  the  gift  of  grace,  we  have  faith,  we 
remember  "I  thank  Thee,  Father,  that  Thou  hast 
hid  these  things  from  the  wise  and  prudent,  and  has 
revealed  them  unto  babes :  even  so,  Father,  for  so  it 
seemed  good  in  Thy  sight." 

Again,  and  if  as  persons  we  are  to  grow  in  rela- 
tionship to  a  personal  God,  we  must  both  speak  and 
listen  to  our  Father;  in  other  words  we  must  use  the 
great  dynamic  of  prayer.  "More  things  are  wrought 
by  prayer  than  this  world  dreams  of."  We  are  told 
that  one  of  the  requisites  of  the  really  good  talker  is 
to  be  a  good  listener;  the  apparently  good  talker  is 
in  reality  a  monologuist.  In  our  prayer-life  today 
do  we  recognize  sufficiently  the  need  for  listening  to 
God?  We  are  perhaps  ready  enough  to  ask  for 
blessings  and  mercies,  but  that  is  only  a  part  of  the 
full  life  of  prayer  which  must  include  also  thanks- 
giving, lifting  of  the  heart  and  mind,  and  quiet 
listening  or  interior  prayer.  There  was  an  age  in 
the  world  when  this  interior  prayer  was  so  much 
more  joyful  and  natural  a  thing  than  the  world  of 
matter  that  it  had  to  be  taught  "to  labour  is  to  pray." 
Today,  when  we  accept  the  necessity  of  labour,  and 
even  worship  activity  for  its  own  sake,  do  we  not 
need  to  be  reminded  that  to  pray  is  to  labour?  If 
you  doubt  this,  try  to  make  that  concentrated  form 


PERSONAL    RESPONSIBILITY       239 

of  prayer  known  as  meditation,  out  of  which  springs 
a  resolve  and  determination  to  do  better;  try  to  do 
this  faithfully  for  fifteen  minutes  a  day  and  it  may 
prove  the  hardest  work  you  have  ever  undertaken. 
A  great  servant  of  God  has  said,  "I  believe  no  soul 
can  be  lost  which  faithfully  practices  meditation  for 
fifteen  minutes  a  day."  Nor  must  we  forget  that  in 
this  work  of  prayer  we  are  companioned  by  the  Holy 
Spirit,  the  Peace-maker,  Who  maketh  intercession 
for  us  "with  groanings  which  can  not  be  uttered"  and 
Who  leads  us  ever  gently  but  surely  into  that  closer 
communion  with  God  whose  result  is  "life  more 
abundant."  After  prayer  it  is  easier  to  realize  that 
"to  be  spiritually  minded  is  life  and  peace";  it  is 
easier  to  obey  the  injunction  "And  grieve  not  the 
Holy  Spirit  of  God  whereby  ye  are  sealed  unto  the 
day  of  redemption.  Let  all  bitterness,  and  wrath, 
and  anger,  and  clamour,  and  evil  speaking  be  put 
away  from  you,  with  all  malice,  and  be  ye  kind  one 
to  another,  tender-hearted,  forgiving  one  another, 
even  as  God,  for  Christ's  sake,  hath  forgiven  you." 
And  for  those  that  seek  after  peace  it  must  be  all 
wrath,  all  anger  and  all  evil  speaking  which  are  put 
away :  This  leaves  no  room  for  what  the  world  calls 
"just  wrath"  "righteous  anger,"  or  speaking  evil  of 
evil  doers.  Let  us  call  to  mind  the  incident  in  the 
early  life  of  St.  John,  afterwards  the  great  disciple 
of  love,  when  he  wanted  to  call  down  wrath  on  the 
wicked  inhabitants  of  a  city  and  was  rebuked  by 
Our  Lord  who  said,  "Ye  know  not  in  what  spirit  ye 
speak."  After  love  had  supplanted  wrath,  and  the 
good  spirit  had  taken  the  place  of  the  evil  in  St. 


240      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

John's  heart,  he  was  sent  to  convert  the  people  he 
would  have  destroyed.  Yes,  it  is  the  spirit  that  mat- 
ters, the  wrath  that  is  wrong  and  that  must  be  put 
away  before  we  can  love  God  or  our  neighbour  as 
ourself,  for  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit  is  love,  joy,  peace, 
long  suffering,  gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meekness, 
temperance. 

When  we  understand  that  the  object  of  life  and 
of  education  is  the  creation  of  a  spirit  and  not  the 
doing  of  things,  we  are  freed  from  the  tyranny  of 
results  in  this  world  as  a  final  test  and  come  to  realize 
that  judgment  belongs  only  to  God  Who  as  a  Spirit 
judges  the  effort. 

Of  course  this  does  not  mean  that  we  are  freed 
from  the  moral  law,  that  certain  evil  things  in  our- 
selves and  in  others  are  not  always  the  results  of 
an  evil  spirit,  but  rather  that  in  addition  to  avoiding 
and  shunning  those  things  which  are  obviously  evil, 
we  must  with  equal  care  avoid  doing  even  good 
things  in  a  bad  spirit.  The  commandments  still 
stand,  the  moral  law  is  abated  not  one  jot,  but  in 
Christianity  and  in  Christianity  alone  are  we  given 
power  to  fulfill  the  law  and  to  add  the  new  com- 
mandment, the  summing  up  of  them  all,  of  love  to 
God  and  man.  No  human  soul  comes  into  the  world 
without  some  desire  to  be  good,  because  each  human 
soul  is  a  child  of  God.  To  each  one,  not  blinded  by 
pride  (and  surely  it  should  be  easy  in  these  days 
to  be  humble)  comes,  sooner  or  later,  the  realization 
of  his  own  inability  of  himself  to  do  what  he  would, 
the  need  for  a  power  outside  himself,  the  power 
which  is  available  and  of  which  we  have  heard  "I 


PERSONAL    RESPONSIBILITY       24! 

am  come  that  ye  might  have  life  and  more  abun- 
dantly." Let  us  examine  how  the  apostles  set  about 
living  this  abundant  life.  In  Dr.  Genung's  "The 
Life  Indeed"  we  read,  "One  and  all  they  made  it  a 
matter  of  the  spirit  that  is  the  man,  but  the  spirit 
they  recognized  was  not  an  abstraction,  or  a  theory, 
but  a  present  Person  and  helper  who  was  witnessing 
with  their  spirits.  St.  John  makes  the  matter  equally 
definite :  'The  Son  of  God,'  he  says,  'was  manifest 
that  he  might  destroy  the  works  of  the  Devil,' 
and  St.  Paul,  mindful  of  the  inner  subtleties  of  the 
conflict,  warns  his  readers  that  Satan  has  changed  his 
tactics  and  has  transformed  himself  into  an  angel 
of  light.  I  am  not  sure  that  we  have  gained  greatly 
by  letting  our  notions  of  spiritual  life  grow  dim  and 
abstract.  Perhaps  for  this  very  reason  the  rebel- 
lious, negative,  designing  spirit  that  is  so  prone  to 
invade  the  hearts  of  us  all  is  the  more  free  to  gain 
a  foot-hold  and  go  about  controlling  the  tone  of  our 
life.  There  is  real  advantage  in  bringing  the  large 
issues  of  life  to  a  point  where  not  only  our  mind  but, 
as  it  were,  our  senses,  can  lay  hold  on  them.  It  is 
the  impulse  of  simple-minded  men  like  those  early 
disciples,  and  if  we  continue  straight-seeing  we  do 
not  outgrow  it.  What  makes  these  views  of  life  so 
deep  is  not  that  they  are  less  simple  than  those  of 
others,  but  that  they  are  more  simple.  To  St.  John 
the  reality  that  has  come  to  win  the  world  is  not  the 
promise  of  salvation,  or  prophecy  of  an  eventual  life 
eternal,  but  just  life  without  modification  or  limita- 
tion, life  absolute,  full-orbed,  pulsating  through 
worlds  seen  and  unseen  alike.  'I  am  the  Life,'  he 


242       TOWARDS     THE      GREAT      PEACE 

makes  Christ  say,  not,  "am  working  to  secure  it."  St. 
John  it  is  who  preserves  to  us  that  conception  of  eat- 
ing the  Flesh  and  drinking  the  Blood  of  the  Son  of 
Man.  No  philosopher  in  the  world,  we  may  roundly 
say,  would  ever  have  put  it  so,  and  yet  how  effectually 
is  thus  revealed  what  it  means  to  get  the  power  of 
the  new  life  thoroughly  incorporated  with  our  blood 
and  breath.  He  it  is  who  identifies  the  most  inner 
values  of  life  with  the  simplest  acts  and  experiences, 
reducing  it  to  terms  of  eating  bread  and  drinking 
water,  and  walking  in  daylight,  and  bearing  fruit  like 
the  branches  of  a  vine  and  following  like  sheep  the 
voice  of  a  shepherd,  and  entering  a  door  and  finding 
pasture." 

Let  us  cease  trying  materialistic  and  intellectual 
means  for  supplying  the  power  to  live  the  spiritual 
life  and  let  us  each  one  establish  the  needful  relation- 
ship with  the  true  source  of  power.  May  our  time 
not  be  likened  to  the  Oriental  traveller,  who,  appre- 
ciating the  convenience  and  force  of  electricity  as 
seen  in  a  room  he  occupied,  fitted  his  palace,  on  his 
return,  with  a  set  of  elaborate  fixtures  and  was  sur- 
prised to  find  no  illumination  therefrom!  We  are 
torches  who  can  not  shine  in  themselves,  but  who, 
when  connected  with  the  great  central  Source  of 
Power,  the  Blessed  Trinity  in  its  three  glorious  mani- 
festations, can  show  forth  the  light  of  the  world. 
Christians  should  be  torch  bearers,  and  the  true 
torch  bearer  lights  not  his  own  path  so  much  as  the 
path  of  those  who  come  after  him.  And  this  brings 
us  to  the  fundamental  reason  for  personal  respon- 
sibility. Our  motive  in  seeking  personal  righteous- 


PERSONAL    RESPONSIBILITY       243 

ness  it  not,  as  might  hastily  be  thought,  because  of  a 
selfish  desire  to  save  our  own  souls,  or  to  withdraw 
either  here  or  hereafter  from  other  souls,  but  for 
"their  sakes"  to  sanctify  ourselves;  for  the  lives 
we  live  today  create  the  spiritual  atmosphere  of  to- 
morrow. 

From  Spain  come  the  following  suggestive 
thoughts  in  regard  to  the  value  of  the  person.  "The 
individual  is  the  real  purpose  of  the  universe.  We 
may  seek  the  hero  of  our  thought  in  no  philosopher 
who  lived  in  flesh  and  blood,  but  in  a  being  of  fiction 
and  of  action,  more  real  than  all  the  philosophers. 
He  is  Don  Quixote.  One  cannot  say  of  Don  Quixote 
that  he  was  strictly  idealistic.  He  did  not  fight  for 
ideas:  he  was  of  the  spirit  and  he  fought  for  the 
spirit.  Quixotism  is  a  madness  descended  from  the 
madness  of  the  cross;  therefore  it  is  despised  by  rea- 
son; Don  Quixote  will  not  resign  himself  to  either 
the  world  or  its  truth,  to  science  or  logic,  to  art  or 
aesthetics,  to  morals  or  ethics.  And  what  did  he 
leave  behind  him?  one  may  ask.  I  reply  that  he  left 
himself,  and  that  a  man,  a  man  living  and  immortal, 
is  worth  all  theories  and  all  philosophies.  Other 
countries  have  left  us  institutions  and  books:  Spain 
has  left  soul.  St.  Theresa  is  worth  all  institutions 
whatever,  or  any  'Critique  of  Pure  Reason.' ' 

Yes,  this  is  I  think  the  lesson  we  have  to  learn, 
now  at  this  turning  point  in  history  with  the  epoch 
of  intellect  crumbling  about  our  ears,  and  the  great 
World's  Fair  of  multiplied,  ingenious  mechanisms 
we  have  called  "modern  civilization"  at  a  point 
of  practical  bankruptcy.  It  is  the  spirit  that  counts, 


244      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

the  soul  of  "man  living  and  immortal,"  and  only 
through  our  own  living,  and  the  spiritual  force  that 
we  can  command,  and  through  ourselves  apply,  shall 
we  be  able  to  compass  that  social  regeneration  that  is 
the  only  alternative  to  social  degeneration  and  catas- 
trophe. The  man  who  does  not  live  his  belief  is 
powerless  to  redeem  or  to  create,  though  he  were  a 
Solon,  a  Charlemagne,  a  Napoleon  or  a  Washington; 
the  man  who  lives  his  belief,  even  if  he  is  a  mill-hand 
in  Fall  River,  is  contributing  something  of  energizing 
force  to  the  task  of  re-creation.  "Not  by  might,  nor 
by  power,  but  by  my  Spirit,  saith  the  Lord  of  Hosts." 

Fantastic  and  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem  to  link 
together  Don  Quixote  and  St.  Theresa,  I  am  not 
sure  that  we  could  do  better  than  to  accept  them  as 
models.  The  loud  laughter  of  an  age  of  intellectual 
ribaldry  and  self-conceit  dies  away  and  the  gaunt 
figure  of  the  last  of  the  Crusaders  still  stands  before 
us  heroic  in  his  childlike  refusal  of  compromise,  his 
burning  compassion,  his  deafness  to  ridicule.  In  a 
sense  we  must  all  be  ready  to  accept  the  jeering  and 
the  scorn  that  were  poured  out  on  the  Knight  of  La 
Mancha,  if  like  him  we  are  to  fight,  even  foolishly, 
for  the  things  that  are  worth  fighting  for — either 
that  they  may  be  destroyed,  or  restored.  And  with 
St.  Theresa  we  must  be  willing  to  endure  obloquy, 
suspicion,  malice,  if  like  her  we  live  in  faith,  sub- 
jecting our  will  to  the  divine  will,  and  then  sparing 
nothing  of  ourselves  in  the  labour  of  saving  the  world 
for  God  in  the  twentieth  century  as  St.  Theresa 
laboured  to  save  it  in  the  sixteenth  century. 

The  call  today  is  for  personal  service  through 


PERSONAL    RESPONSIBILITY       245 

the  right  living  that  follows  the  discovery  of  a  right 
relationship  to  God.  Not  a  campaign  but  a  crusade; 
and  the  figures  of  St.  Louis  and  St.  Francis  and  St. 
Theresa,  together  with  all  the  Knights  and  Crusaders 
of  Christendom,  rise  up  before  us  to  point  the  way. 
We  would  find  the  Great  Peace,  the  world  would 
find  the  Great  Peace  also,  but 

The  way  is  all  so  very  plain 
That  we  may  lose  the  way. 

We  have  been  told:  "Seek  ye  first  the  Kingdom 
of  God  and  His  righteousness,  and  all  these  things 
shall  be  added  unto  you,  for  your  Heavenly  Father 
knoweth  ye  have  need  of  these  things."  If  we  go 
forth  on  this  new  and  knightly  quest — quest  indeed  in 
these  latter  days,  for  the  Holy  Grail,  lost  long  since 
and  hidden  away  from  men — we  may,  by  the  grace  of 
God,  achieve.  Then,  "suddenly,  in  the  twinkling 
of  an  eye,"  and  before  we  are  aware,  for  "the  King- 
dom of  God  cometh  not  with  watching,"  we  and 
even  the  world,  shall  find  that  we  have  compassed 
the  Great  Peace,  and  if  we  do  not  live  to  see  it, 
yet  in  our  "certain  hope"  we  shall  know  that  it  will 
come,  if  not  in  our  time,  yet  in  God's  good  time;  if 
not  in  our  way,  yet  in  His  more  perfect  way. 

In  these  lectures  I  have  from  time  to  time,  and 
perhaps  beyond  your  patience,  criticised  and  con- 
demned many  of  those  concrete  institutions  which 
form  the  working  mechanism  of  life,  even  suggest- 
ing possible  substitutes.  In  ending  I  would  say  as 
in  beginning;  this  is  not  because  salvation  may  be 
found  through  any  device,  however  perfect,  but  be- 


246      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

cause  this  itself,  by  reason  of  its  excellence  on  the 
one  hand  or  its  depravity  on  the  other,  is,  under 
the  law  of  life,  contributory  to  the  operation  of  the 
divine  spirit  (which  is  the  sole  effective  energy)  or 
a  deterrent.  I  have  tried  at  long  last  to  gather  up 
this  diffuse  argument  for  the  supremacy  of  spiritual 
force  as  it  works  through  the  individual,  and  to  place 
it  before  you  in  this  concluding  lecture.  Perhaps 
I  can  best  emphasize  my  point  thus. 

The  evil  of  the  institutions  which  now  hold  back 
the  progress  that  must  be  made  towards  social  re- 
covery and  the  Great  Peace,  is  far  less  the  quality  of 
wrongness  in  themselves  and  the  ill  influence  they  put 
in  operation,  than  it  is  the  revelation  they  make  of 
personal  character.  It  is  not  so  much  that  news- 
papers are  what  they  are  as  that  there  should  be  men 
who  are  pleased  and  content  to  make  them  this,  in 
aparently  honest  ignorance  of  what  they  are  doing, 
and  that  there  should  be  others  in  sufficient  number 
to  make  them  profitable  business  propositions  by 
giving  them  their  appreciation  and  support.  It  is  not 
so  much  that  government  should  be  what  it  is  as  that 
character  should  have  so  far  degenerated  in  the 
working  majority  of  citizens  that  these  qualities 
should  show  themselves  as  a  fixed  condition,  and 
that  there  should  be  no  body  of  men  of  numerical 
distinction,  who  regard  the  situation  with  sentiments 
much  more  active  than  those  of  indifference  and 
amused  toleration.  It  is  not  so  much  that  the  in- 
dustrial situation  should  be  what  it  is,  as  that  there 
should  be  on  both  sides  moral  wrong,  and  that  this 
condition  could  not  have  come  about,  nor  could  it 


PERSONAL    RESPONSIBILITY       247 

still  be  maintained,  except  through  character  degen- 
eration in  the  individual.  It  is  not  so  much  that 
many  forms  of  religion  are  what  they  are,  as  it  is 
that  they  should  progressively  have  become  this 
through  their  exponents  and  adherents,  and  that 
there  should  be  so  many  who  are  still  willing  to  de- 
fend them  in  this  case. 

Every  ill  thing  reveals  through  its  very  quality  the 
defects  of  the  individual  man,  and  as  upon  him  must 
rest  the  responsibilities  for  the  fault,  so  on  him  must 
be  placed  the  responsibility  for  the  recovery.  The 
failures  we  have  recorded,  the  false  gods  we  have 
raised  up  in  idolatry,  even  the  Great  War  itself,  are 
revelations  of  failure  in  personal  and  individual 
character.  We  may  recognize  this,  but  recognition 
is  not  enough.  We  may  found  societies  and  com- 
mittees and  write  books  and  deliver  lectures,  but 
corporate  action  is  not  enough,  nor  intellectual  as- 
sent. There  is  but  one  way  that  is  right,  sufficient 
and  effective,  and  that  is  the  right  living  of  each  in- 
dividual, which  is  the  incarnation  and  operation  of 
faith  by  the  grace  of  God. 

It  is  my  desire  to  close  this  course  of  lectures  not 
with  my  own  words  but  with  those  of  one  of  the  great 
personalities  revealed  by  the  war.  First,  however, 
I  wish  to  say  this.  If  there  is  any  thought  or  word 
in  what  I  have  said  that  seems  to  you  true,  then  I 
ask  you  to  use  it  not  as  a  matter  for  discussion  but 
as  an  impulse  toward  personal  action.  If  there  is 
anything  that  is  of  the  nature  of  explicit  error,  then 
I  pray  that  the  Spirit  of  Truth  may  make  deaf  your 
ears  that  you  hear  not,  and  blot  out  of  your  memory 


248      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

the  record  of  what  I  have  said.  If  there  is  anything 
that  is  not  consonant  with  the  Christian  religion,  as 
this  has  been  revealed  to  the  world  and  as  it  is 
guarded  and  interpreted  by  the  Church  to  which 
these  powers  were  committed,  then  I  retract  and  dis- 
avow it  explicitly  and  ex  ammo. 

There  are  two  great  spiritual  figures  that  have 
been  revealed  to  us  through  the  Great  War:  Car- 
dinal Mercier,  the  great  confessor,  who  held  aloft 
the  standard  of  spiritual  glory  through  the  war  it- 
self, and  Bishop  Nicholai  of  Serbia  who  has  testi- 
fied to  eternal  truth  and  righteousness  in  the  wilder- 
ness the  war  has  brought  to  pass.  It  is  with  his  in- 
spired words  that  I  will  make  an  ending  of  the  things 
I  have  been  impelled  to  say. 

"Christ  is  merciful,  but  at  last  He  comes  as  the 
Judge.  *  *  *  He  comes  now  not  to  preside  in 
the  churches  only  but  to  be  in  your  homes,  in  your 
shops,  to  be  everywhere  with  you.  He  wants  to  be 
first;  He  has  become  last  in  Europe,  *  *  Civili- 
zation passes  like  the  winds,  but  the  soul  remains. 
Christianization  is  the  only  good  and  constructive 
civilization.  Americanization  without  Christianiza- 
tion means  Bolshevism.  Europe  is  suffering  today 
for  her  sins.  Christ  has  forgiven  seventy  times 
seven,  and  now  it  seems  that  He  is  the  Judge,  turn- 
ing away,  rejected,  leaving  Europe  and  going 
through  the  gate  of  Serbia  to  Asia.  Pray  for  us. 
*  *  *  Send  us  not  your  gold  and  silver  for  food  so 
much  as  send  us  converted  men.  Convert  your  poli- 
ticians, your  members  of  the  press,  your  journalists, 
to  preach  Christ. 


PERSONAL    RESPONSIBILITY       249 

"Christ  is  choosing  the  perfect  stones,  the  marble 
of  all  the  churches,  to  complete  His  mystical  body 
in  Heaven.  He  thinks  only  of  one  Church,  made 
from  those  true  to  Him  of  all  the  churches  here. 
Civilizations  are  moving  pictures,  made  by  man. 
Without  God  they  perish.  The  soul,  the  spirit,  lives. 
The  war  is  not  against  externals;  the  war  is  against 
ourselves." 


APPENDIX  A 

"C^ROM  the  point  attained  in  the  lecture  on  "A 
Working  Philosophy,"  a  point  I  believe  to  be 
clearly  indicated  by  Christian  philosophy  and 
sharply  differentiated  from  that  of  paganism  or 
modernism,  I  would  adventure  further  and  even  into 
a  field  of  pure  theory  where  I  can  adduce  no  sup- 
port or  justification  from  any  other  source.  Specu- 
lation along  this  line  may  be  dangerous,  even  un- 
justifiable; certainly  it  introduces  the  peril  of  an 
attempt  to  intellectualize  what  cannot  be  appre- 
hended by  the  intellectual  faculty,  an  effort  which 
has  been  the  obsession  of  modernism  and  has  re- 
sulted in  spiritual  catastrophe.  On  the  other  hand 
we  are  confronted  by  a  definite  and  plausible  system 
worked  out  by  those  who  were  without  fear  of  these 
consequences,  and  while  this  already  is  losing  some- 
thing of  its  common  acceptance,  it  is  still  operative, 
indeed  is  the  only  working  system  and  consistent 
theory  of  the  majority  of  thinking  men  outside  the 
limits  of  Catholicism.  I  think  it  wrong  both  in  its 
assumptions  and  its  inferences,  and  it  certainly 
played  a  deplorable  part  in  the  building  up  of  the 
latest  phase  of  modern  civilization,  while  its  per- 
sistence is,  I  am  persuaded,  a  barrier  to  recovery  or 
advance.  This  theory,  which  has  gradually  been 
deduced  from  the  wonderful  investigations,  tabula- 
tions and  inferences  of  Darwin,  Tyndall,  Huxley, 

251 


252      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

Spencer  and  others  of  the  great  group  of  British 
intellectuals  and  scientists  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
is  known  under  the  general  title  of  Evolution. 

The  following  suggestions  are  offered  with  ex- 
treme diffidence,  and  only  as  uncertain  and  inde- 
terminate approximations.  In  some  respects  they 
seem  not  inconsistent  with  the  most  recent  scientific 
research  which  already  is  casting  so  much  doubt  on 
many  of  the  assumed  factors  behind  evolution  and 
on  the  accepted  methods  of  its  operation.  The  true 
solution,  if  it  is  found,  will  result  from  the  cooper- 
ation of  scientists,  philosophers  and  theologians,  il- 
luminated by  the  fire  of  the  Divine  Wisdom — Hagia 
Sophia — for  in  such  a  problem  as  this,  almost  the 
final  secret  of  the  Cosmos,  no  single  human  agency 
acting  alone  can  hope  to  achieve  the  final  revelation, 
while  all  acting  together  could  hardly  escape  falling 
into  "the  falsehoods  of  their  own  imaginings"  if 
they  relied  solely  on  their  unaided  efforts  in  the  in- 
tellectual sphere. 

Assuming  then  that  life  is  an  enduring  process  of 
the  redemption  of  matter  through  the  interpene- 
tration  of  spirit,  what  is  a  possible  method  of  action? 
To  explain  what  I  mean  I  must  use  a  diagrammatic 
figure,  but  I  admit  this  must  be  not  only  inadequate 
but  misleading,  for  instead  of  the  two  dimensions 
of  a  diagram,  we  must  postulate  three,  with  time 
added  as  a  vital  element,  and,  I  dare  say,  a  "fourth 
dimension"  as  well.  Confessing  inadequacy  in  the 
symbol,  let  us  conceive  of  a  space  divided  into  four 
strata.  The  lowest  of  these  is  the  primary  unknow- 
able, the  region  of  pure  spirit,  pure  spirit  itself,  the 


APPENDIX  253 

creative  energy  of  the  universe,  the  unconditioned 
Absolute,  in  the  terms  of  Christian  theology,  Al- 
mighty God.  The  second  is  the  plane  of  matter,  an 
area  of  potential,  but  in  itself  inert  and  indetermin- 
ate. The  third  is  the  space  of  what  we  call  life  in 
all  its  forms,  the  area  in  which  the  transformation 
and  redemption  take  place.  The  fourth  is  the  ulti- 
mate unknowable,  that  is  to  say,  that  which  follows 


DIAGRAM  No.  I.  The  interpenetration  of  Matter  by  Spirit. 
x,  The  primary  Unknowable ;  x,  the  ultimate  Unknowable ;  a, 
the  plane  of  Matter;  ft,  the  plane  of  Life. 

on  after  life  and  receives  the  finished  product  of 
redemption. 

Now  there  is  eternally  in  process  a  penetration  of 
the  stratum  of  matter  by  jets  of  the  elan  vital  from 
the  realm  of  pure  spirit,  each  as  it  were  striving  to 
detach  from  the  plane  of  matter  some  small  por- 
tion, which  is  transformed  in  its  passage  through 
life  and  achieves  entrance  into  the  ultimate  unknow- 
able, when  the  process  of  redemption  is,  for  this 
small  particle,  completed.  Always,  however,  is  ex- 
erted the  gravitational  pull  of  matter,  and  the  energy 
that  drove  through,  instead  of  pursuing  a  right  line, 
tends  to  bend  in  a  parabolic  curve,  like  the  trajectory 


254      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

of  a  cannon  ball.  In  the  completion  of  the  process 
some  portion  of  redeemed  matter  "gets  by,"  so  to 
speak,  but  other  portions  do  not;  they  return  to  their 
source  of  origin  and  are  reabsorbed  in  matter,  be- 
coming subject  to  the  operation  of  future  interpen- 
etrating jets  of  spiritual  energy.  The  upward  drive 
of  the  elan  vital  constitutes  what  may  properly  be 
known  as  evolution,  the  declining  fall  the  process  of 
devolution  or  degeneration.  Evolution  then  is  only 
one  part  of  the  cosmic  process,  it  is  inseparable  from 
degeneration. 

This  process  holds  in  the  case  of  individuals,  of 
families,  of  races,  of  states  and  of  eras,  or  definite 
and  completed  periods  of  time.  As  man  is  begotten, 
born,  developed  to  maturity  and  then  is  brought 
downward  to  the  grave,  so  in  the  case  of  races  and 
nations  and  the  clearly  defined  epochs  into  which 
the  history  of  man  divides  itself.  There  is  no  me- 
chanical system  of  "progress,"  no  cumulative  wisdom 
and  power  that  in  the  end  will  inevitably  lead  to 
earthly  perfection  and  triumph.  For  every  individ- 
ual there  is  the  possibility  of  spiritual  evolution 
within  the  time  alloted  that  will  open  for  him  the 
gates  that  bar  the  frontiers  of  the  world  of  reality 
and  of  redemption  that  lies  beyond  that  world  of 
earthly  life  which  is  the  field  of  contest  between  un- 
redeemed matter  and  redeeming  spirit,  of  contest 
and  of  victory — or  of  failure.  In  the  case  of  races 
and  nations  and  epochs  there  is  the  same  conflict  be- 
tween material  factors  and  spiritual  energy;  the  same 
crescent  youth  with  all  its  primal  vitality,  maturity 
with  its  assurance  and  competence,  and  the  dying 


APPENDIX  255 

fall  of  dissipating  energies.  In  each  case  death  is 
the  concomitant  of  life  but  there  is  always  something 
that  lasts  over,  and  that  is  the  spiritual  achievement, 
the  precious  residuum  that  remains,  defying  death 
and  dissolution,  that  infuses  the  plane  of  life  with 
its  redemptive  ardour,  and  is  the  heritage  of  lives 
that  come  after,  acting  with  the  sacramental  agencies 
of  religion  in  cooperation  with  God  Who  ordained 
and  compassed  them  both,  in  that  great  process  of 
redemption  and  salvation  that  is  continually  taking 
place  and  will  continue  until  matter,  and  time  which 
is  but  the  ratio  of  the  resistance  of  matter  to  the  re- 
deeming power  of  spirit,  shall  be  no  more. 

I  confess  the  hopelessly  mechanical  quality  in  this 
vain  attempt  to  put  into  words  something  that  by  its 
very  nature  must  transcend  all  modes  of  expression 
that  are  intellectually  apprehendable.  Taken  literally 
it  would  be  entirely  false  and  probably  heretical 
from  a  theological  point  of  view,  as  it  certainly  is 
more  than  inadequate  as  a  philosophical  proposition. 
It  is  intended  only  as  a  symbol,  and  a  gross  symbol 
at  that,  but  as  such  I  will  let  it  stand. 

Now  if  there  is  indeed  a  possible  truth  hidden 
somewhere  within  somewhat  clumsy  approximations, 
it  must  modify  some  of  our  generally  accepted  ideas. 
The  life-process  will  appear,  not  a  slow,  interrupted, 
but  substantially  forward  development  from  lower 
and  simpler  organisms  to  higher  and  more  complex, 
with  the  end  (if  there  be  an  end),  beyond  the  very 
limits  of  eternity,  but  rather  a  swift  creation  of 
some  of  the  highest  forms  through  the  first  energy 
of  the  creative  force,  with  the  throwing  off  of  ever 


256      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

lower  and  lower  forms  as  the  curve  of  the  trajectory 
descends.  So  through  a  mass  of  low  and  static  vital- 
ity comes  the  sudden  and  enormous  power  that  pro- 
duces at  the  very  beginnings  of  our  own  recorded 
history  of  man,  the  almost  superhuman  intelligence 
and  capacity  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Egyptians.  So 
each  of  the  definite  eras  of  civilization  opens  with 
the  releasing  of  great  energies,  the  revealing  of 
great  figures  of  paramount  character  and  force.  So, 
conversely,  as  the  energy  declines,  men  appear  less 
and  less  potent  and  in  a  descending  scale.  This  is 
the  case  with  the  Greek  states,  with  the  Roman 
Republic  and  the  Empire,  with  Byzantium,  with 
Mediaevalism,  and  with  our  modern  era.  I  do  not 
know  of  any  other  theory  that  claims  to  explain  the 
perpetual  and  rythmical  fluctuations  of  history,  as 
violent  in  their  degree  as  they  are  approximately 
regular  in  their  rhythm. 

Following  the  idea  a  little  further,  it  may  even 
appear  that  many  of  the  lower,  and  particularly  the 
more  distorted,  forms  of  animal  life,  instead  of  be- 
ing abortive  or  undeveloped  stages  in  a  continuous 
evolutionary  progress,  are  actually  the  product  of  a 
diminishing  energy,  stages  in  a  process  of  degener- 
ation, and  therefore  leading  not  upward  to  ever 
higher  stages  of  development  having  issue  at  last 
in  a  completed  perfection,  but  rather  downward  to 
ultimate  extinction.  Geology  records  this  process 
in  sufficient  quantity,  so  far  as  many  members  of 
the  animal  kingdom  are  concerned,  and  we,  in  our 
own  day,  have  seen  the  extinction  of  the  dodo  as 
well  as  the  threatened  disappearance  of  other 


APPENDIX  257 

species.  Creeping  and  crawling  creatures  too,  that 
we  could  crush  with  the  heel,  are  but  the  last  and 
puny  descendants  of  mighty  and  terrible  monsters 
that  once  rolled  and  crashed  through  the  fetid  for- 
ests of  the  carboniferous  era.  So  there  are  races  of 
men  today,  amongst  others  the  pygmies  of  Africa 
and  the  Australian  bushmen,  as  well  as  some  nearer 
in  a  certain  degree  to  the  dominant  races  of  the 
world,  whom  large-hearted  optimists  regard  as 
stages  of  retarded  development,  capable,  under 
tutelage,  of  advance  to  a  level  with  the  Caucasian, 
but  who,  in  this  view  of  the  case,  would  be  but  the 
weakening  product  of  the  "dying  fall"  of  the  energy 
that  produced  the  Greek,  the  Semite  and  the  Nordic 
stocks. 

So  in  the  last  instance,  the  ape  and  the  lemur  and 
all  their  derivatives  may  be,  not  records  of  some  of 
the  many  stages  through  which  man  has  passed  in 
his  process  of  evolution,  sidetracked  by  the  upward 
rush  of  one  highly  favoured  or  fortunate  line,  nor 
yet  an  abrotive  branch  from  the  common  trunk  from 
which  sprang  both  man  and  ape,  but  rather  the  last 
degradation  of  a  primaeval  energy,  producing  in  its 
declension  these  strange  caricatures  of  the  Man  in 
whose  production  it  found  its  achievement.  In  other 
words,  the  old  evolutionary  idea  is  exactly  reversed, 
and  those  phenomena  once  looked  on  as  passed 
stages  of  growth,  become  the  memorials  of  a  cre- 
ative process  that  has  already  achieved,  and  is  now 
returning,  with  its  fantastic  manifestations  in  terms 
of  declining  life,  even  to  that  primordial  mystery 
whence  it  had  emerged. 


258      TOWARDS     THE      GREAT     PEACE 

Granting  this  theory,  the  search  for  the  "missing 
link,"  whether  in  the  geological  strata  below  those 
that  revealed  the  Piltdown  skull,  or  in  the  fast- 
nesses of  Central  Asia,  is  as  vain  a  quest  as  it  has 
always  been.  Primaeval  man,  as  he  is  grudgingly  re- 
vealed to  us,  may  have  been  the  degenerate  re- 
mainder of  an  earlier  and  fully  developed  race  whose 
rcords  are  buried  in  the  sunken  fastnesses  of  some 
vanished  Atlantis  or  Lemuria,  as  the  races  of  the 
South  Sea  Islands  may  be  less  metamorphosed  rem- 
nants of  the  same  stock.  Into  this  infinitely  de- 
graded residuum  of  a  vanished  race  entered  the  new 
energizing  force  when  the  divine  creative  energy 
came  once  more  into  operation,  in  the  fullness  of 
time,  and  the  Minoan,  the  Egyptian  and  the  Greek 
came  almost  in  an  hour  to  their  highest  perfection.  So 
through  the  unnumbered  ages  of  the  world's  history, 
God  has  from  time  to  time  created  man  in  His  own 
image,  out  of  the  dust  of  the  earth,  and  man  so 
made  "a  little  lower  than  the  angels"  has,  also  in 
time,  fallen  and  forfeited  his  inheritance.  Yet  the 
process  goes  on  without  ceasing,  and  in  conform- 
ity with  some  law  of  divine  periodicity;  but  it  is 
Man  that  is  created  in  the  beginning,  of  his  full 
stature,  even  as  is  symbolically  recorded  in  the  Book 
of  Genesis;  not  a  hairy  quadrumana  that  by  the 
operation  of  the  laws  of  natural  selection  and  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  ultimately  and  through  endless 
ages,  and  by  the  most  infinitesimal  changes,  becomes 
at  last  Plato  and  Caesar,  Leonardo  and  Dante,  St. 
Louis  and  Shakespeare  and  St.  Francis. 

Now  in  this  process  of  the  interpenetration   of 


APPENDIX  259 

matter  by  spirit  there  must  be  a  certain  periodicity, 
if  it  is  a  constant  process  and  not  one  accomplished 
once  and  for  all  time  in  the  very  beginnings  of  the 
world.  This  rythmical  action,  which  is  exemplified 
by  every  phenomenon  of  nature,  the  vibratory  pro- 
cess of  light,  sound,  heat,  electricity,  the  pulsation 
of  the  heart,  the  motion  of  the  tides,  has  never  es- 
caped the  observation  even  of  primitive  peoples, 
and  always  attempts  have  been  made  to  determine 
its  periodicity.  May  it  not  be  infinitely  complex, 
as  the  ripple  rises  on  the  wave  that  lifts  on  the  swell 
of  the  underlying  tide?  Certainly  we  are  now  be- 
ing forced  back  to  a  new  consideration  of  this  peri- 
odical beat,  in  history  at  least,  for  now  that  our 
own  era,  which  came  in  by  the  power  of  the  Renais- 
sance and  the  Reformation  and  received  its  final 
energizing  force  through  the  revolutions  of  the 
eighteenth  century  and  the  industrial  revolution  of 
the  nineteenth,  is  so  manifestly  coming  to  its  end, 
we  look  backward  for  precedents  for  this  unex- 
pected debacle  and  lo,  they  appear  every  five  hun- 
dred years  back  as  far  as  history  records.  500  B.C., 
Anno  Domini;  500  A.D.,  1000  A.D.,  and  1500  A.D. 
are  all,  to  the  point  of  very  clear  approxima- 
tion, nodal  points,  where  the  curve  of  the  preceding 
five  centuries,  having  achieved  its  crest,  curves  down- 
ward, and  in  its  fall  meets  the  curve  of  rising  energy 
that  is  to  condition  the  ensuing  era.  The  next  nodal 
point,  calculated  on  this  basis,  comes  about  the  year 
2000.  Are  we  not  justified,  in  plotting  our  trajectory 
of  modernism,  in  placing  the  crest  in  the  year  1914, 
and  in  tracing  the  line  of  fall  from  that  moment? 


260      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

I  have  plotted  this  curve,  or  series  of  curves,  after 
a  rough  and  ready  fashion  (Diagram  No.  2)  and 
though  the  personal  equation  must,  in  any  subjective 
proposition  such  as  this,  enter  largely  into  account, 
I  think  the  diagram  will  be  accepted  in  principle  if 
not  in  details,  and  not  wholly  in  its  relationships. 
I  have  made  no  effort  to  estimate  or  indicate  com- 
parative heights  and  depths,  giving  to  each  five- 


ADi     |     |     I   5001     I     I     IIOOOI     I     I     115  001     I          12000 


DIAGRAM  No.  2.  The  rise  and  fall  of  the  line  of  civilization; 
showing  also  the  nodal  points  at  the  Christian  Era  and  at  the  years 
500,  1000,  1500  and  2000  (  ?) 

hundred  year  epoch  a  similar  level  of  rise  and  depth 
of  fall.  Perhaps  the  actual  difference  here  would, 
rightly  estimated,  be  less  than  we  have  been  led 
to  believe,  though  certainly  few  would  lift  the  Car- 
olingian  crest  to  the  level  of  that  of  Hellenism  or 
of  the  Middle  Ages,  nor  assign  to  the  end  of  this 
latter  period  as  low  a  fall  as  that  accomplished  dur- 
ing the  tenth  century  in  continental  Europe. 

In  a  third  cut  (Diagram  No.  3)  I  have  roughly 
indicated  in  conventional  form  a  phenomenon  which 
seems  to  me  to  show  itself  around  the  nodal  point 
when  a  descending  curve  of  energy  meets  and  crosses 
the  descending  line.  As  the  elan  vital  that  has  made 
and  characterized  any  period  declines,  it  throws  off 
reactions,  the  object  of  which  is  if  possible  to  arrest, 


APPENDIX 


26l 


or  at  least  delay,  the  fatal  glissade.  These  are,  in 
intent  and  in  fact,  reforms;  conscious  efforts  at  sav- 
ing a  desperate  situation  by  regenerative  methods. 
Trace  back  their  lines  of  procedure,  and  in  every  case 
they  will  be  found  to  issue  out  of  the  very  force  which 
is  even  then  in  process  of  degeneration,  therefore 
they  are  poisoned  at  the  source  and  no  true  or  vital 
reforms,  for  the  sudden  energy  that  urges  them  is, 
after  all,  in  no  respect  different  from  that  which  is 
already  a  failing  force. 


DIAGRAM  No.  3.    The  reactions  thrown  off  by  (a)  the  descend- 
ing line  of  vital  force,  (6)  by  the  ascending  line. 

This,  I  conceive,  is  why  today  the  multitudinous 
and  specious  "reforms,"  which  beat  upon  us  from 
all  sides,  and  find  such  ready  acceptance  in  the  en- 
actments of  law,  are  really  no  reforms  at  all,  since 
each  one  of  them  is  but  an  exaggeration  or  distor- 
tion of  the  very  principles  and  methods  that  al- 
ready are  bending  downward  the  curve  of  our  pro- 
gression until  it  disappears  in  the  nether-world  of 
failure,  as  did  those  of  every  preceding  epoch  of 
equal  duration.  An  example  of  what  I  mean  is  the 


262      TOWARDS     THE     GREAT     PEACE 

astute   saying,    frequently   heard   nowadays:   "The 
cure  for  democracy  is  more  democracy." 

Now  while  one  curve  descends  and  throws  off  its 
reformative  reactions  in  the  process,  the  other  is 
ascending,  preparatory  to  determining  the  coming 
era  for  its  allotted  space  of  five  centuries.  In  this 
process  it  also  throws  off  its  own  reactions,  but  these 
are  for  the  purpose  of  lifting  the  line  more  rapidly, 
bringing  its  force  into  play  before  its  determined 
time.  These  also  are  exaggerations,  over-emphasized 
qualities  that  are  inherent  in  the  ascending  force,  and 
they  are  no  more  to  be  accepted  as  authoritative  than 
are  the  others.  They  have  their  value  however,  for 
they  are  prophetic,  and  even  in  their  exaggeration 
there  is  the  clear  forecast  of  things  to  be.  Trace 
them  in  turn  to  the  source.  What  is  their  source? 
The  new  power  issues  out  of  obscurity  and  its  char- 
acter is  veiled,  but  we  can  estimate  it  from  the  very 
nature  of  the  exaggerated  reactions  we  can  see.  If 
something  shows  itself,  in  sociology,  economics,  pol- 
itics, religion,  art,  what  you  will,  that  is  especially  a 
denial  of  what  has  been  a  controlling  agency  during 
the  past  four  or  five  hundred  years:  if  it  is  by  com- 
mon consent  impractical  and  "outside  the  current 
of  manifest  evolutionary  development,"  then,  shorn 
of  its  exaggerations,  reduced  to  its  essential  quality, 
it  is  very  probably  a  clear  showing  forth  of  what  is 
about  to  come  to  birth  and  condition  human  life  for 
the  next  five  hundred  years.  This,  I  suppose,  ex- 
plains the  comprehensive  return  to  Medievalism 
that,  to  the  scorn  of  biologists,  sociologists  and  pro- 
fessors of  political  economy,  is  flaunting  itself  be- 


APPENDIX  263 

fore  us  today,  at  the  hands  of  a  very  small  minority, 
in  all  the  categories  I  have  named,  as  well  as  in  many 
others  besides. 

A  glance  at  the  diagram  will  show  a  curious  pat- 
tern round  about  the  nodal  point.  One  may  say  that 
the  reactions  are  somewhat  mixed.  Quite  so.  At 
this  moment  we  are  beaten  upon  by  numberless  re- 
forms, both  "radical"  and  "reactionary."  Material- 
ism, democracy,  rationalism,  anarchy  contending 
against  Medievalism  of  twenty  sorts,  and  strange 
mysticisms  out  of  the  East.  Which  shall  we  choose, 
if  we  choose,  and  do  not  content  ourselves  with  an 
easier  inertia  that  allows  nature  to  take  its  course? 
It  is  simply  the  question;  On  which  wave  will  you 
ride;  that  which  is  descending  to  oblivion  or  that 
which  has  within  itself  the  power  and  potency  to 
control  man's  destiny  for  the  next  five  hundred 
years? 


APPENDIX  B 


CERTAIN  BOOKS  SUGGESTED  FOR 
COLLATERAL  READING 


ADAMS,  HENRY 
ADAMS,  HENRY 
BAUDRILLART,  A. 

BELL,  BERNARD  IDDINGS 
BELLOC,  HILAIRE 
BRYCE,  VISCOUNT 
BULL,  PAUL  B. 
CHESTERTON,  G.  K. 
CHESTERTON,  G.  K. 
CHESTERTON,  G.  K. 
CONKLIN,  E.  G. 
CRAM,  R.  A. 
CRAM,  R.  A. 
CRAM,  R.  A. 
CRAM,  R.  A. 
FAGUET,  E. 
FERRERO,  G. 
FIGGIS,  J.  N. 
FIGGIS,  J.  N. 
FIGGIS,  J.  N. 

GENUNG,  J.  F. 
GRAHAM,  STEPHEN 
HARRISON,  MCVEIGH 
HUBBARD,  A.  J. 
IRELAND,  ALLEYNE 
LEBON,  G. 

MEIKLEJOHN,  ALEXANDER 
MORRIS,  WILLIAM 
PECK,  W.  G. 
PENTY,  A.  J. 
PENTY,  A.  J. 
PHILLIPPS,  L.  MARCH 
PHILLIPPS,  L.  MARCH 
PORTER,  A.  KINGSLEY 
POWELL,  F.  C 
RAUPERT,  G. 

SHIELDS,  THOMAS  E. 
TAWNEY,  R.  H. 
WALSH,  JAMES  J. 
WALSH,  JAMES  J. 
WORRINGER,  W. 

DEWULF,  M. 


Mont  Saint-Michel  and  Chartrcs. 

Degradation  of  the  Democratic  Dogma. 

Catholic  Church,  Renaissance  and  Prot- 
estantism. 

Right  and  Wrong  after  the  War. 

The  Servile  State. 

Modern  Democracies. 

The  Sacramental  Principle. 

Orthodoxy. 

What's  Wrong  with  the  World. 

The  Napoleon  of  Netting  Hill. 

The  Direction  of  Human  Evolution. 

The  Nemesis  of  Mediocrity. 

Walled  Towns. 

The  Ministry  of  Art. 

The  Great  Thousand  Years. 

The  Cult  of  Incompetence. 

Europe's  Fateful  Hour. 

Civilization  at  the  Cross  Roads. 

The  Will  to  Freedom. 

Political    Aspects    of    St.    Augustine's 
"City  of  God." 

The  Life  Indeed. 

Priest  of  the  Ideal. 

Daily  Meditations. 

The  Fate  of  Empires. 

Democracy  and  the  Human  Equation. 

The  World  in  Revolt. 

The  Liberal  College. 

The  Dream  of  John  Ball. 

From  Chaos  to  Catholicism. 

Old  Worlds  for  New. 

The  Restoration  of  the  Guild  System. 

Form  and  Colour. 

Europe  Unbound. 

Beyond  Architecture. 

A  Person's  Religion. 

Human    Destiny    and    the    New    Psy- 
chology. 

The  Philosophy  of  Education. 

The  Acquisitive  Society. 

The  Thirteenth, Greatest  of  Centuries. 

Education,  How  Old  the  New. 

Form  Problems  of  the  Gothic. 

History  of  Mediaeval  Philosophy. 
264 


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